# A hyphen is not a dash **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 26, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861 "2017-02-26T18:50:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/21 "2017-02-27T00:39:24Z")
I know I’m doing it wrong when I use two hyphens and no spaces–I just think using spaces looks stupid. The whole point is that it looks almost like an em dash, and you don’t put a space before and after an em dash. (There are times where you put one after, but I rarely use them that way.) ---
**Author:** ![markdash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@markdash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markdash)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/22 "2017-02-27T01:17:50Z")
Well, this topic is a bit awkward for me, seeing as how my name derived from “Mark-” on IRC… ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/23 "2017-02-27T01:29:42Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I became enamored with the dash via Edgar Allan Poe, who used it extensively and even made it the subject of a short easy with beginning and end quoted here: Don’t leave us all hanging! A short easy _what_? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/24 "2017-02-27T01:41:44Z")
On iOS, just long-press the hyphen; you’ll get the popout balloon that lets you choose the en-dash and the em-dash. It also works on any letter that has diacritical variants, the currency symbol to get other currency symbols, and other punctuation to get variations. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/25 "2017-02-27T02:23:50Z")
My keyboard doesn’t have anything but one dash-like key. It is a minus. Also, I don’t care, it’s a meaningless distinction anyway. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/26 "2017-02-27T02:41:15Z")
> [@TheCuse](#): > > … > I will honestly admit my ignorance when PC follks talk about the codes. > > Is it really that complicated to type an em dash? > > I mean no offense and am honestly asking. I have not used a PC or worked on one in 25+ years. I’ve been on a Mac. > … Hyphen is the one and only button on the keyboard. There is no universal OS-standard keystroke sequence for en or em dash. Different apps may have different shortcuts for them. As well, people who care can define shortcuts to those codes depending again on which apps they’re using them in. As a separate matter, the OS provides a way to produce any Unicode character if you know the code point number in decimal. That’s where the “alt+ 4 digits” trick comes from. You can also type a capital A by entering alt+0065. Bottom line: On PCs unless you’re a professional desktop publisher dash = emdash = endash = hypen = minus = that key up near the zero/right-paren key. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/27 "2017-02-27T02:58:17Z")
I read the title of this thread, and even though the syllable count is off, and it doesn’t scan, I can’t help but think of the number _A Secretary is Not a Toy_ from _How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying_: > **[a secretary is not a toy - Yahoo Video Search Results](https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0LEVxvjlLNYoIUAgUFXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyZ2VqamliBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjMzMTlfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=a%2Bsecretary%2Bis%2Bnot%2Ba%2Btoy&fr=yfp-t#id=6&vid=c3c6c39450cbf1ec0891779aa2b9e8b7&action=view)** > > The search engine that helps you find exactly what you're looking for. Find the most relevant information, video, images, and answers from all across the Web. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/28 "2017-02-27T03:17:04Z")
In MS Word on a PC, Ctrl + (numberpad minus) gives an en-dash. But not the minus key between the zero and =/+ key. But of course I don’t have a numberpad on my laptop. In my browser (Chrome on a PC), I’m not seeing any difference between the hyphen and en-dash on this board. Em-dashes don’t get used very much in the style guide I’m accustomed to. _Science_ uses a hyphen for in-text representation of single chemical bonds. I prefer an en-dash, as used by ACS. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/29 "2017-02-27T08:37:43Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Don’t leave us all hanging! A short easy _what_? Sorry. My mind must have wandered to the Jack Nicholson essay “Five Easy Dashes.” > [@ftg](#): > > To the OP. Look. We have to compromise. A keyboard doesn’t have open and close quotes for example. We just have ". Not the best thing but it will do. Same thing with using “-” as hyphen, em-dash, en-dash and minus… > > Not remotely anything to lose sleep over. The fancy quote marks annoy me — why can’t we just stick to plain old Ascii? — and when I copy-paste from newspapers I often edit **“I am not a crook”** to be **“I am not a crook”** just for consistency. BUT SPACE-HYPHEN-HYPHEN-SPACE is all in Vanilla Ascii and is an acceptable form of dash, as I clearly conceded in #1. (In fact it’s still the “dash” I use most often: I’m too stupid or lazy to figure out how to get the _vim_ editor to allow Alt codes. And I’ve been bit too often to try anything risqué with Gmail.) BTW, I’m well aware that the spaces adjacent to the dash are non-standard — I add them because the result seems more aesthetic to me. I’m not sure what form my idol Mr. Poe used. My 1927 edition of _Marginalia_ has unspaced dashes but when I Googled for a copy-paste I found on-line versions with spaces, and a version with dashes instead of some of the commas in the 1927 edition! But … while looking for a **“I am not a crook”** to copy-paste just now, _ **I discover that the N.Y. Times — the once venerable institution that has suddenly allied with Daesh as enemy of the American people — uses a space before its dash and a space after.** _ Yay me!! > [@RTFirefly](#): > > Oh sure, I could have Googled it myself if I cared. But you see, you’re the one who cares about this, and I’m the one who doesn’t. And yet you didn’t care enough to say it in the thread. Hell, you didn’t even care about it enough to choose an actual link! Whatever, dude. 🙂 I just noticed the thread “(Un)Common Knowledge: What do you factual knowledge do you possess that you are surprised that more people are clueless about?” I was planning to mention “people who think 1900 was a leap year” but may instead mention “people who don’t know the difference between hyphen and dash.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/30 "2017-02-27T12:56:52Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > … > In my browser (Chrome on a PC), I’m not seeing any difference between the hyphen and en-dash on this board. Em-dashes don’t get used very much in the style guide I’m accustomed to. > … FWIW on my IE on WinRT the three symbols in **Johanna** ’s post #3 are different. On zooming a bunch it’s apprarent the hyphen is ever so slightly shorter than the en-dash. But much more obviously, it’s thicker vertically. At normal unzoomed font size the differences are all but invisible. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/31 "2017-02-27T13:08:13Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Maybe I should have put this in the Pit! 😛 [Let me Google that for you.](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=the+difference+was+between+a+hyphen+and+a+dash) Not very helpful. My own prior languages do not differentiate between hyphen, m dash and n dash (the short and long ones were used only for typographical reasons, not orthographical ones), so an explanation would have been nice. Not that I care enough to go search, mind you. Anybody who actually cares to make me differentiate them in my writing can give me whatever rules he specifically wants me to follow. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/32 "2017-02-27T14:03:13Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > In my browser (Chrome on a PC), I’m not seeing any difference between the hyphen and en-dash on this board. Yeah, I noticed this once my post had been posted. But while I was editing it, the en dash was clearly longer than the hyphen. If you open the quote screen from my post, the difference will be easily seen without magnification or straining. I had to go back and look at the editing view to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. You can enter them different, but the board software renders them practically indistinguishable, albeit not exactly the same if you zoom in. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/33 "2017-02-27T14:27:08Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I just noticed the thread “(Un)Common Knowledge: What do you factual knowledge do you possess that you are surprised that more people are clueless about?” I was planning to mention “people who think 1900 was a leap year” but may instead mention “people who don’t know the difference between hyphen and dash.” 😃 The thing is, who needs to know that? As **ftg** said, the standard keyboard has just one dash key, the one to the right of the zero. And it works for pretty much all purposes; the variation in lengths only matters to purists like you. Sure, one should know how to use dashes properly to connect words and set off phrases and clauses - but who gives a shit which dash is called a dash, and which dash is called a hyphen? Eighth grade was a lifetime ago. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/34 "2017-02-27T15:51:52Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Do not use the wrong punctuation marks, your reader will not understand. Hartman’s law of prescriptivist retaliation has struck again. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/35 "2017-02-27T15:54:48Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > FWIW on my IE on WinRT the three symbols in **Johanna** ’s post #3 are different. > > On zooming a bunch it’s apprarent the hyphen is ever so slightly shorter than the en-dash. But much more obviously, it’s thicker vertically. > > At normal unzoomed font size the differences are all but invisible. > [@Johanna](#): > > Yeah, I noticed this once my post had been posted. But while I was editing it, the en dash was clearly longer than the hyphen. If you open the quote screen from my post, the difference will be easily seen without magnification or straining. I had to go back and look at the editing view to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. You can enter them different, but the board software renders them practically indistinguishable, albeit not exactly the same if you zoom in. Weird. Yet Android Chrome renders all three of them very differently on my phone. Weird indeed. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/36 "2017-02-27T16:24:30Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > The thing is, who needs to know that? As **ftg** said, the standard keyboard has just one dash key, the one to the right of the zero. And it works for pretty much all purposes; the variation in lengths only matters to purists like you. > > Sure, one should know how to use dashes properly to connect words and set off phrases and clauses - but who gives a shit which dash is called a dash, and which dash is called a hyphen? Eighth grade was a lifetime ago. Mea culpa. The dash which Edgar Poe espouses so eloquently — maybe I should have posted the whole essay — is the long one. The short one is used to hyphenate words. A mnemonic for your future use is _ **“hyphenated words have hyphens.”** _ HTH. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/37 "2017-02-27T16:31:57Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Mea culpa. The dash which Edgar Poe espouses so eloquently — maybe I should have posted the whole essay — is the long one. The short one is used to hyphenate words. A mnemonic for your future use is > _ **“hyphenated words have hyphens.”** _ > > HTH. If, as seems sensible, hyphenated words have hyphens, then the “one” used to hyphenate words is not a dash at all. It’s a hyphen. So you’ve confused at least me if not yourself. IMO a hyphen is not a type of dash, just as a semicolon is not a type of comma. I’d enjoy somebody who understands this stuff well (i.e. not me) giving us a short course in en-dash vs. em-dash usage. Yes, there’s more than one answer and it’s subject to various conventions and style guides. But a capsule summary of common patterns would be handy. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/38 "2017-02-27T16:47:42Z")
Hyphens, en dashes and em dashes in Microsoft Word: [ul] [li]Entering a word, then a hyphen, then a word, results in two words separated by a hyphen without any spaces on either side of the hyphen.[/li][li]Entering a word, then a space, then a hyphen, then a space, then a word, results in two words separated by an en dash with spaces on either side of it that should be removed. [/li][li]Entering a word, then two hyphens, then a word, results in an em dash without any spaces on either side of the em dash.[/li] [/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/39 "2017-02-27T17:12:36Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > - hyphen > – en > — em > > Three different lengths for three different purposes. You forgot: · um dash, for those really brief pauses. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861/40 "2017-02-27T17:23:02Z")
It’s different strokes for different folks when it comes to the use of em dashes: [ul] [li]Applying AP, spaces are used.[/li][li]Applying Chicago, spaces are not be used.[/li][li]Applying Oxford, an m dash is replaced by an n dash with which spaces are used, but this is not to be confused with the use of an dash with which spaces are not used.[/li][/ul] I wonder how hyphens, en dashes and em dashes have been treated in various editions of _Gulliver’s Travels_ over the years? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-hyphen-is-not-a-dash/780861.md?page=3)