Do you know which dashes or hyphens to use in your writing? The different lengths of hyphens and dashes all have slightly different uses and deciding which to use in your writing can sometimes come down to your style guide. In this blog post, we look at the differences between hyphens and dashes and explain which you should use in your writing.
Hyphens
We’ll start with the most used line: the hyphen.
Soft hyphens
These little lines can be used a variety of ways. You’ll see a lot of them hanging around at the end of lines, where a word was too long to fit. These are called soft hyphens and are placed to show where a word continues onto the next line.
This isn’t done randomly and thought needs to be given to the positioning of these lines. The New Oxford Spelling Dictionary, which I talk about in this blog post, shows where words are best separated to avoid any confusion for the reader.
In Microsoft Word’s package you can tell the computer where you’d like a soft hyphen to go. It’s called the optional hyphen and if you key [Ctrl]+[-] you can insert a soft hyphen. You might not see it unless you need it but you can check it’s there by displaying the formatting marks. You see a [¬] symbol to show where, if needed, a soft hyphen will be placed.
Hard hyphens
We’ve had soft hyphens so, naturally hard hyphens come next.
These are used to make compound words: a well-known story, an up-to-date record or a circus fire-eater.
Actually, that last example shows another reason why you might hyphenate. As English continues to evolve, words that were once joined with a hyphen (air-raid) have become two words (air raid) or become smashed together to make just one word (air-stream has become airstream).
Joining words together
But, fire-eater would look odd as “fireeater” because of that double e in the middle so, along with words like drip-proof and part-time, the hyphen is great at separating the parts of the word.
Numbers and points of the compass can be made using hyphens: thirty-three, twenty-first, a south-easterly direction.
Some prefixes and even fewer suffixes get joined with hyphens, too: antibodies are prevalent at the moment but you need hyphens for re-entry (that double e problem again) ex-directory and bell-like (another tricky double).
You might also use a hyphen to indicate someone’s stammer or a pause in speech: “I-I-thought I saw a-a- g-g-g-ghost!”
There’s a few other uses for hyphens but we’re really digging into the nitty-gritty…
Dashes
When it comes to dashes, there are two sizes: en rule and em rule.
They are so called because they are the length of the “N” and “M” characters. We’ll start with the en rule.
En dashes
In Word, you’ll need to key [Ctrl]+[Num -] to print a en rule dash.
Do this to show a range, particularly in numbers, “pages 23–99”, or in days, “he worked Monday–Wednesday”.
It might be that you want to add additional information into your text, like this bit here between the commas, but you really want it to stand out or be separate from the main sentence. One way to do that – you’ll note I say one way – is to use spaced en rule hyphens.
Em dashes
The other way you might choose to do that is with em rules.
So you could have information in a sentence—then add some more—just like this. To do that, you need to key [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Num -] in Word. Notice also that there are no spaces this time.
Another use for the em rule is to show trailing off in dialogue: “This post is so boring, I’m just so—” the cat fell asleep.
This is not a comprehensive and exhaustive list of when to use these dashes and hyphens. For further reading, I’d suggest New Hart’s Rules or a similar style guide and consult an editor before publishing!
That’s enough from me. I’m going to f— off…!
Nick (he/him) is an experienced professional editor and proofreader, specialising in LGBTQ+ writing. He is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association.
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