How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

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650 points Stratoscope | 2 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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mmooss ◴[27 Mar 25 23:41 UTC] No.43499567[source]▶

Here's an easy, if not always precise way to remember:

* Hyphens connect things, such as compound words: double-decker, cut-and-dried, 212-555-5555.

* EN dashes make a range between things: Boston–San Francisco flight, 10–20 years: both connect not only the endpoints, but define that all the space between is included. (Compare the last usage with the phone number example under Hyphens.)

* EM dashes break things, such as sentences or thoughts: 'What the—!'; A paragraph should express one idea—but rules are made to be broken.

Unicode has the original ASCII hyphen-minus (U+002d), as well as a dedicated hyphen (U+2010), other functional hyphens such as soft and non-breaking hyphens, and a dedicated minus sign (U+2212), and some variations of minus such as subscript, superscript, etc.

There's also the figure dash "‒" (U+2012), essentally a hyphen-minus that's the same width as numbers and used aesthetically for typsetting, afaik. And don't overlook two-em-dashes "⸺" and three-em-dashes "⸻" and horizontal bars "―", the latter used like quotation marks!

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BoumTAC ◴[28 Mar 25 09:15 UTC] No.43503176[source]▶

>>43499567 #

I'm not a native English speaker, but don't you use the ";" in English ?

To me, it feels like it is the same purpose as the EM dashes.

And I discovered the EM with ChatGPT, I've never seen it before.

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1. grey413 ◴[28 Mar 25 09:57 UTC] No.43503424[source]▶

>>43503176 #

Em dashes are very similar to semicolons. You use em dashes if your related sentence is in the middle of another sentence, and semicolons if it's at the end.

They're frequently used in skilled and professional grade writing.

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2. mmooss ◴[28 Mar 25 18:51 UTC] No.43508779[source]▶

>>43503424 (TP) #

So as not to mislead anyone, the parent is mostly incorrect:

Here's an example sentence: Semicolons must have independent clauses—phrases that could form a full sentence on their own—on both sides of them; they are essentially alternatives for periods. Em dashes don't require independent clauses on either side.

In the italicized sentence,

* phrases that could form a full sentence on their own is not an independent clause but is valid between em dashes. on both sides of them, after the em dashes, is also not an independent clause. (The em dashes function like commas or parentheses here.)

* The parts before and after the semicolon are independent clauses. You could replace the semicolon with a period and you'd have perfectly valid grammar. I just chose to connect the two sentences a bit more.

I don't know if you can use em dashes as the parent comment describes, connecting three independent clauses:

* My favorite fruit is peaches—they are very sweet—I eat them all summer.

I think the above is wrong; it should be one of the following:

* My favorite fruit is peaches—they are very sweet—and I eat them all summer.: The last section is a dependent clause made by "and", not an independent clause.

* My favorite fruit is peaches—they are very sweet; I eat them all summer.: One both sides of the semicolon are independent clauses; I could replace the semicolon with a period.

Maybe there are examples I'm not thinking of? I infer that the rule might be that the punctution following the em-dashed clauses should be the punctuation that would have been used without the em-dashed clause, but that's based on very limited evidence.

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