Wednesday, September 18, 2019

How and When to Use HYPHENS, DASHES, & ELLIPSES


ELLIPSES vs. DASHES; also HYPHEN, EM DASH and EN DASH

by Jodie Renner, editor & author 

In my editing of fiction manuscripts, I often find writers using ellipses (...), hyphens, or semicolons where they should use dashes. Here's a brief run-down on the correct use of these punctuation marks.

A. Ellipsis (…) or Dash (—)?          


In fiction,

An ellipsis (…) is used to show hesitation:

“What I meant is… I don’t know how to begin…” 

or a trailing off:


"She came with you? But I thought..." She paused.
"You thought what? Come on, spit it out."

(Also, usually in nonfiction, indicates the omission of words in a quoted text.)

A dash (—), also called em dash, is used to show an interruption in speech:


“But I—”

“But nothing! I don’t want to hear your excuses!”

or a sudden break in thought or sentence structure: “Will he—can he—find out the truth?”

The dash is used for amplifying or explaining
, for setting off information within a sentence, kind of like parentheses or commas can do: 

“My friends—I mean, my former friends—ganged up on me.” 

B. Hyphen vs. En Dash vs. Em Dash:

The en dash is longer than a hyphen but shorter than an em dash (the normal dash).

A hyphen (-) is used within a word.


It separates the parts of a compound word: bare-handed, close-up, die-hard, half-baked, jet-lagged, low-key, never-ending, no-brainer, pitch-dark, self-control, single-handed, sweet-talk, user-friendly, up-to-date, watered-down, work-in-progress, etc.

Dashes are used between words.


An en dash (–) connects numbers (and sometimes words), usually in a range, meaning “to”: 1989–2007; Chapters 16–18; the score was 31–24 for Green Bay; the London–Paris train; 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. Also sometimes used as a dash in articles and other nonfiction writing, with a space on each side ( – ).

An em dash (—) is used to mark an interruption, as mentioned above (“What the—”), or material set off parenthetically from the main point—like this. Don’t confuse it with a hyphen (-). In fiction, the em dash almost always appears with no spaces around it.

C.
How to Create Em Dashes and En Dashes:  


Em dash (—) Ctrl+Alt+minus (far top right, on the number pad). CMS uses no spaces around em dashes; AP puts spaces on each side of em-dashes

En dash (–) Ctrl+minus (far top right, on the number pad). Usually has a space on both sides.


D. Advanced Uses of the Dash (Em Dash):

According to the Chicago Manual of Style (6.87), “To avoid confusion, no sentence should contain more than two em dashes; if more than two elements need to be set off, use parentheses.”

The Chicago Manual of Style also says (6.90) that if the break belongs to the surrounding sentence rather than to the quoted material, the em dashes must appear outside the quotation marks: “Someday he’s going to hit one of those long shots and”—his voice turned huffy—“I won’t be there to see it.”

Using an em dash in combination with other punctuation: CMS 6.92: “A question mark or an exclamation point—but never a comma, a colon, or a semicolon, and rarely a period—may precede an em dash.

All at once Jeremy—was he out of his mind?—shook his fist in the officer’s face.

Only if—heaven forbid!—you lose your passport should you call home.


E. More on hyphens

For much more on when (and when not) to use hyphens, see my post, It's All About Those Hyphens!  

See also: Dialogue Nuts & Bolts
 Some Common Grammar Gaffes,
 Basic Formatting of Your Manuscript
Style Blunders in Fiction

Do you have any other punctuation or grammar questions you'd like me to address? If so, please leave your suggestions or questions in the comments below. Thanks!

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Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of three craft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling FictionWRITING A KILLER THRILLER, FIRE UP YOUR FICTION, and CAPTIVATE YOUR READERS, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, QUICK CLICKS: Spelling List and QUICK CLICKS: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity: VOICES FROM THE VALLEYS – Stories and Poems about Life in BC’s Interior, and CHILDHOOD REGAINED – Stories of Hope for Asian Child WorkersYou can find Jodie on her Amazon Author Page, at www.JodieRenner.com, and on Facebook. 

12 comments:

  1. Good to know! Thanks for sharing these. I'll eventually forget, but it's nice to have the reference to go back to.

    For me, these are just as difficult to remember as the difference between "affect" and "effect". Dictionary.com is forever my friend. :)

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  2. Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Diane. Writers have more important things to think about than punctuation - that's what editors are for! :)

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  3. Hi Jodie,
    I'll be keeping this post for reference. Very helpful. Thank you. :-)

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  4. Thanks, Tracy. Glad you find my tips helpful! :)

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  5. How about em dashes used with quoted material broken up by the speaker asking a question to someone?

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  6. Hello...

    I cannot recast this. My boss wants it this way in a business report.

    The defendant owned a $10- to $15-million-a-year industry.

    Or should it be:

    a $10-million- to $15-million-a-year industry

    I think both may be correct. Are they? And if so, which one is preferred as written?

    Also, "a 25- to 30-percent-a-year increase in revenue." Is this truly correct with the suspended hyphen? Again, I am not permitted to recast, as much as I would like to. :-(

    Thank you so much for any reply.

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  7. Hi Mike,

    Your boss is correct. Go with what he/she says.

    Jodie

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  8. Very important: The comma may be omitted between the em dash and the speaker in a quotation per CMS ed. 16, section 6.86.

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    Replies
    1. Spot-on, Leigh. The 16th edition came out in 2010; this blog post from 2013 refers to the then-decade-old 15th edition.

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  9. The idea isolates your aspects of a new chemical substance expression: bare-handed, close-up, die-hard, half-baked, jet-lagged, low-key, never-ending, no-brainer, pitch-dark, self-control, single-handed, sweet-talk, user-friendly, up-to-date, watered-down, work-in-progress, and many others.

    ReplyDelete