The Greeks simply wrote words without punctuation marks or, for that matter, spaces. Punctuation as we understand it is a function of the written word, not language in general, and was a latecomer to the party. It was only when we started hammering these things out of metal rather than drawing them with ink that a proper distinction began to seem important. Before type, there was no need to understand how much longer an em dash was than an en dash, or an en dash than a hyphen it was enough to simply know that they were. But what do they mean? Why do they look the way they do?Īt some point, when we started typing these marks rather than writing them, their form was standardized. Why is this not impressive? Because Word will do it for you, if you use the correct combination of spaces and hyphens: two hyphens without spaces on either side for an em dash, and a hyphen between spaces for an en dash.īut thinking about dashes got me wondering, in true copy editor fashion, about something more obscure and more pedantic. With this in mind, by far the least impressive skill I have acquired in my time at Leff is the ability to type em dashes and en dashes using the number pad on my keyboard (ALT+0151 and ALT+0150, respectively, if you’re curious). And we kind of geek out about the many and distinct uses of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes (and semicolons and commas…). This explanation is not intended to be exhaustive (for much more, see chapter 6 in CMOS), but I do hope that it helps to frame the different potential of each length of dash.If you’ve perused the Leff blog before, you may have picked up on the fact that we’re big fans of the em dash. In interrupted speech, one or two em dashes may be used: “I wasn’t trying to imply-” “Then just what were you trying to do?” Also, the em dash may serve as a sort of bullet point, as in this to-do list: For example, in a bibliographic list, rather than repeating the same author over and over again, three consecutive em dashes (also known as a 3-em dash) stand in for the author’s name. Its use or misuse for this purpose is a matter of taste, and subject to the effect on the writer’s or reader’s “ear.” Em dashes also substitute for something missing. It allows, in a manner similar to parentheses, an additional thought to be added within a sentence by sort of breaking away from that sentence-as I’ve done here. Now, that is a rather fussy use of the en dash that many people ignore, preferring the hyphen. In that example, “pre” is connected to the open compound “World War II” and therefore has to do a little extra work (to bridge the space between the two words it modifies-space that cannot be besmirched by hyphens because “World War II” is a proper noun). En dashes are also used to connect a prefix to a proper open compound: for example, pre–World War II. And in fact en dashes specify any kind of range, which is why they properly appear in indexes when a range of pages is cited (e.g., 147–48). The en dash connects things that are related to each other by distance, as in the May–September issue of a magazine it’s not a May-September issue, because June, July, and August are also ostensibly included in this range. The hyphen connects two things that are intimately related, usually words that function together as a single concept or work together as a joint modifier (e.g., tie-in, toll-free call, two-thirds). I frame it this way because the work they do is roughly related to their length (though I don’t think CMOS puts it this way outright). First of all, there are three lengths of what are all more or less dashes: hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (-). I will try to condense the various bits of information scattered throughout CMOS. What is the difference in usage between an em dash and an en dash?Ī.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |