It’s a dash dash dash

The hyphen (dash), en-dash (also known as en-rule), and em-dash (em-rule) have different functions.

Common use of hyphens:

• to connect words into a single unit, e.g. short-term, long-term
• for certain prefixes, e.g. counter-intelligence
• where words have different meaning with a prefix compared to without, e.g. recover v re-cover
• where a prefix creates a word with two vowels, such as re-emphasise (but not cooperation)
• when the prefix is lower case but the word is a pronoun (capital letter), e.g. non-English speaking
• between a prefix and a number, e.g. 3-months
• for numbers in written form, e.g. three-quarters, thirty-seven.

If in doubt, look up the word/term in the dictionary and add it to your personal style guide as a reminder. Consistency is key! Over time, and as compound words become normalised in language, they often become a single word and drop the hyphen, e.g. wellbeing.

The en-dash is a longer dash and used for punctuation. The en-dash looks similar to the minus sign, but do not mix the two for reasons of accessibility (see accessibility page). Common uses of the en-dash include:

• to show a span of numbers, such as years, age ranges, page numbers where no space between en-dash and figures
• to show an equal relationship between two things
• to provide added emphasis to text in a sentence (similar to brackets) either in the middle of a sentence (pair) or at the end of a sentence with a space either side of the en-dash.

Em-dashes are the longest form of dash. Their use is a matter of style. They are used to provide added emphasis to text in a sentence and are often used without a space between the em-dash and the word. Only one style of emphasis should be used. If using an em-dash to provide emphasis, do not use the en-dash elsewhere in the document to do the same thing. As they are used without a space, the em-dash is not as accessible as the en-dash.

The en-dash and em-dash can be inserted as a short-cut, inserted from symbols (insert, advanced symbols, special characters), and can be inserted as a short-cut when using find and replace. The en-dash appears automatically if adding a space either side of a dash, but sometimes has to be adjusted manually.

For more detailed information on the use of hyphens, en-dash and em-dash, see Style Manual (hyphens) and the Style Manual (dashes).

I clearly need to get out more…