Timeline for When should I use an em-dash, an en-dash, and a hyphen?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
43 events
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| May 31, 2023 at 20:49 | comment | added | Drew | I'd add that an en dash is sometimes used to join terms to form a tuplet of related elements, typically 2 words as a pair, such as a key–value pair or the foo–bar duality/relation. I guess this is your "when expressing a 'to' relationship", but maybe this use is worth pointing out. The order may be relevant or not; it's not always "to" in the sense of first to second. | |
| Sep 12, 2022 at 18:20 | history | edited | avpaderno | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
used sentences for the examples
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| Nov 19, 2021 at 23:34 | comment | added | Louis Liu | Thanks. In case people don't know how to type these: Hold down the Alt key and type 0151 for an em dash or 0150 for an en dash. | |
| May 10, 2021 at 2:57 | comment | added | Praveen | +1 for the Star Wars reference. @SvenYargs: that's what you're seeing in that third example (youtube link). It is indeed an instance where an em-dash is used to break a sentence off, midway. You're right that there are likely better examples, but I approve of this one ;-) | |
| Apr 22, 2021 at 19:59 | comment | added | Sven Yargs | Does anyone else find the third em-dash example ("I sense something; a presence I've not felt since—") mystifying? What's going on in that sentence? If the point is to show an instance in which an em dash is used to break off a sentence in mid-thought or mid-expression, it might be clearer if the earlier part of the sentence didn't include another break (oddly punctuated with a semicolon) that might itself be indicated by an em dash (as in "I sense something—a presence I've not felt since..."). One might, for example, use this as the example: "I sense a presence I've not felt since—" | |
| Sep 26, 2019 at 0:19 | history | edited | ArtOfCode | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Code formatting
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| Feb 16, 2019 at 11:21 | comment | added | squidbe | Many newspapers do surround em dashes with spaces. This has always made more sense to me since it improves clarity by immediately informing me that I shouldn't interpret the word following the dash as the second part of a hyphenated word. And given the differences across fonts, you can't rely solely on the size of the dash/hyphen to provide that clarity. It saves me a moment of mental processing time. | |
| May 19, 2018 at 22:15 | history | edited | q-l-p | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added info about the Figure Dash. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#Figure_dash
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| Oct 31, 2017 at 14:47 | comment | added | Josh Grosso |
A hyphen is used... •em-dash mind explodes
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| Oct 22, 2017 at 16:06 | comment | added | Pacerier | Also c tex.stackexchange.com/a/60038/72495 | |
| Oct 4, 2017 at 7:26 | history | edited | Edwin Ashworth | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 22 characters in body
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| Jun 28, 2016 at 15:00 | comment | added | Peter Shor | @einpoklum: em-dashes can often be used in place of colons, but certainly a colon would work there. | |
| Jun 28, 2016 at 13:51 | history | edited | Michał Perłakowski | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
"Stack Exchange" is the legal name.
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| Feb 16, 2016 at 20:45 | comment | added | einpoklum | In the "3 R's" sentence, shouldn't that be a colon rather than an Em dash? | |
| May 20, 2015 at 10:09 | comment | added | Vala | That's really useful. Just one (unrelated) question: shouldn't "(i.e. an appositive)" be "(e.g. an appositive)" in this case? (With a comma being optional). I could be wrong—English isn't my first language so I try to clarify when I'm not 100% sure. Also — doesn't seem to work in comments. | |
| S Feb 13, 2015 at 17:21 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
changed type from 'rithemtic to 'rithmetic
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| Feb 13, 2015 at 17:07 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Feb 13, 2015 at 17:21 | |||||
| S Oct 8, 2014 at 14:17 | history | suggested | CommunityBot | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
fixed grammar
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| Oct 8, 2014 at 13:52 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Jul 11, 2014 at 16:19 | history | edited | Doktor J | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Moving hyphenated names to the hyphenated section.
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| Feb 11, 2014 at 3:25 | comment | added | Nick Stauner | @KonradRudolph: From Wikipedia, as RegDwigнt linked: "In the United Kingdom, the spaced en dash is the house style for certain major publishers, including the Penguin Group, the Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. In the United Kingdom, the spaced en dash is the house style for certain major publishers, including the Penguin Group, the Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. But this convention is not universal." | |
| Feb 11, 2014 at 3:22 | history | edited | Nick Stauner | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
incorporating comments about cultural differences in preferences for an en-dash vs. a spaced em-dash
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| Jan 21, 2014 at 8:50 | history | edited | avpaderno | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 10 characters in body; Post Made Community Wiki
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| Aug 20, 2012 at 21:41 | history | edited | avpaderno | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
The explanation of the equivalent HTML entities is given on the bottom of the answer; there is no need to repeat it.
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| S Aug 3, 2012 at 2:06 | history | suggested | Luke_0 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
corrected grammar and clarified
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| Aug 3, 2012 at 2:05 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| S Apr 27, 2012 at 19:42 | history | suggested | Sophie Alpert | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
mdash should not have spaces around it (see comments)
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| Apr 27, 2012 at 19:39 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Apr 27, 2012 at 19:42 | |||||
| Apr 27, 2012 at 18:10 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | I’m pretty sure that British English sometimes (?) uses en-dash in places where you’ve cited em-dash. Also, why the en-dash in “Olivia Newton–John”? As far as I know this always uses a hyphen (I’m assuming that it’s a name). Note that this is different from the form in Nicholas’ comment which is indeed usually rendered with an en-dash. | |
| Apr 27, 2012 at 18:05 | history | edited | Jeff Atwood | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 398 characters in body
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| Mar 23, 2012 at 2:14 | comment | added | J.R. | @PLL: Wow – I'm feeling the kind of relief I get when a sliver finally gets removed from my finger. Thanks — that feels great! | |
| S Feb 2, 2012 at 4:03 | history | suggested | SamB | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Code formatting
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| Feb 2, 2012 at 3:53 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| May 23, 2011 at 18:58 | comment | added | Nicholas Wilson |
Some more uses: en-dash in Born–Haber, Bose–Einstein. Em dash for blanked letter, double for two or more letters, triple traditionally for a whole word, though you have to be brave these days to use a dash that long (“s–d this”, “you id——”, “Lord ——— was not amused”.) On a related note, if you care about these sorts of things, you really, really oughtn’t be using &mdash or other entities. Get yourself real mnemonic shortcuts for all the fancy punctuation and characters. I use Compose-hyp-hyp and Compose-hyp-dot for em and en dash (the X11 defaults, I think).
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| Jan 26, 2011 at 16:47 | comment | added | user4012 | I actually wrote a blog post about this recently: lucastizma.com/a-dash-of-grammar I'm all about using proper punctuation, but would you say it has become acceptable to effectively use a hyphen in place of most dashes? | |
| Jan 11, 2011 at 6:49 | comment | added | PLL | Depending on your computer, you may well be able to type en- and em-dashes directly as well: on a Mac they’re option-hyphen and option-shift-hyphen respectively, and I believe that Windows machines have something similar these days. They’re not part of the original ASCII character set, so were not as reliable as —, – in the past, but all modern browsers (and the stack exchange software) cope with the simpler parts of unicode completely fine these days. | |
| Sep 1, 2010 at 18:45 | vote | accept | avpaderno | ||
| Aug 30, 2010 at 18:19 | comment | added | Jonik | Thanks @waymost & @RegDwight! Btw, if anyone else was one wondering what "hair spaces" are, this is useful: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… | |
| Aug 30, 2010 at 17:48 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | @Jonik: different style manuals have different opinions, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#Em_dash and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash | |
| Aug 30, 2010 at 17:46 | comment | added | waymost | You're absolutely right. I added spaces around the em dashes out of habit of putting spaces around HTML entities. Chicago (my preferred style manual) indicates that no space should surround em-dashes. I edited my answer accordingly. Optionally, you can use hair spaces around em-dashes as well. | |
| Aug 30, 2010 at 17:40 | history | edited | waymost | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
corrected spacing around em-dashes
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| Aug 29, 2010 at 20:46 | comment | added | Jonik | One question though: I thought it was customary to use em-dash without spaces—like this—on either side. But you did separate it with spaces in your first sentence. Do you know more about this? | |
| Aug 28, 2010 at 20:39 | history | answered | waymost | CC BY-SA 2.5 |