Hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes – what’s the kerfuffle?
Before I trained as an editor, I had no idea of the difference between a hyphen and a dash, let alone that en-dashes and em-dashes even existed, and I am most definitely not alone. Thanks to the rise of AI, we are all now bombarded with opinions about these humble little marks. So, does using an em-dash expose you as an AI cheat? And what are hyphens really for? Let’s have a closer look.
What is a hyphen?
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Of the three symbols, the hyphen is the baby. It’s very short, and is usually used to link compound adjectives (nice-smelling, ugly-looking, two-year old), or to join words (co-operative, pre-eminent).
Think of it as a linking symbol. Hyphens love a collaboration, especially when it makes things clearer for the reader.
What about the en-dash?
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The en-dash is the middle sibling, and is defined the width of a capital N. It’s pretty versatile but often overlooked. It’s usually used to define ‘between’ or ‘from/to’ in number ranges or place names, (19–25 age group, Bristol–Honolulu branch line).
In the UK, we have a special place for the en-dash in our hearts. We tend to use a spaced en-dash as a parenthetical mark – like this – instead of an em-dash.
The en-dash is a quiet mark that makes things easier to read when we need to process information quickly, whether it’s a shop’s opening times, or a very clear break in a sentence.
You can meet the en-dash in the brilliant Elle Cordova’s instagram vid.
And finally, the em-dash
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The em-dash is the biggie. It’s the width of an upper-case M, and it loves to be seen out and about.
It’s often used in place of a semicolon to separate clauses, or—in the US, particularly—as parenthetical marks that are more emphatic than commas.
Contrary to popular belief, using em-dashes in text doesn’t automatically expose you as an AI impostor; it is an extremely useful and very popular punctuation mark. Because an em-dash looks so very different from a hyphen, it is more likely to be deployed than an en-dash.
