Hyphens and Dashes
A hyphen connects (or links).
A dash separates.
A hyphen is one touch of that line key near the upper-right corner of your keyboard (the hyphen key).
A dash is two touches of that line key near the upper-right corner of your keyboard (the hyphen key).
Something else you need to know: English is a language that,
over time, moves together, like hitting the close-the-doors button on the
elevator.
One
hundred years ago, you would usually spell the words this way: sand box. See
the space?
Fifty
years ago, the words were used together enough that they were often merged, brought
together, linked, conglomerated with a hyphen: sand-box.
Now, we
usually spell it this way, as one word: sandbox.
So we use a hyphen to bring words together. Usually, these
are words brought together to become compound adjectives: The bear-like man was very
strong and hirsute. Sometimes, a hyphen is used in a noun: Spider-Man.
A dash is made by connecting hyphens in order to construct a mark
that pushes away rather than brings together. Its most common use these days
is in the middle of a sentence when you are inserting information and it feels
like too much for commas to handle.
Dashes—which have no space between or around them (if you
can help it, and in Google docs you can’t; Google docs keep a space between the
hyphens) and allow you to fill your sentence to bursting with information—are very
useful punctuation marks. Please, please, please stop using a hyphen when you
mean to separate. Even more please, stop putting a space after a hyphen and
declaring to the world, “There, now I have a dash.” No, you don’t. Remember
what I said about the English language and elevator doors? Well, a dash does
the opposite to parts of a sentence—it sticks a bar between the doors and forces them to remain open.
I wish I had this little gem as a reference two weeks ago. I have several students who misuse the hyphen as a mode of punctuation. Now, I can direct them here. Thank you.
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