Talk:Dash/Archive 1

== Can someone clarify whether the en dash consists of one or two lines, and edit the article to make this clear? At present it indicates that the en dash is half the length of the em dash, but this does not appear to be the case if the en dash consists of two lines. Instead it appears that the individual lines are half the length, but that when put together as a pair, they look a similar length to the em dash. Christidy (talk) 19:51, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The en dash consists of one line. It looks like this: – Dan ☺ 19:00, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I now think that perhaps I have a font problem with my browser. I am using Firefox 2.0.0.3 for Solaris SPARC. When I visit the "Dash" page, the en dash shows up as --. Also, when I view biographies, dates of birth and death are separated by --. Can anyone tell me if they see the same thing? Many thanks. Christidy (talk) 20:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The en dash is a single line. I've never heard this question before, so I'm doubting that it is a general problem. It may be particular to the font or browser you're using, or perhaps the combination.... Thomas Phinney (talk) 07:36, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I feel very strongly that the article should mention that a double-hyphen--when used as a dash--tends to look ugly. —Frungi 5 July 2005 03:29 (UTC)

"Ugly" is POV. Even saying "some people consider it ugly" would be POV thinly disguised by weasel words. However, if you can find a relevant citation (for example, a well-known style manual), you can attribute it to that. — Gwalla | Talk 5 July 2005 03:52 (UTC)

I myself think it looks better.Atinoda 00:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I also think that a double-hyphen--looks better than using - or something else to represent an em dash. //MrD9 06:04, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Although "ugly" is POV, it is a simple fact of typography that the double-hyphen is considered an improper and poor substitute for an em dash. Thomas Phinney (talk) 05:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Unless you're using a typewriter, in which case the double hyphen is the recommended way to make a dash (for em-dash usages, that is, and use just hyphen for en dash in that case). That's why I valued the book The Mac is Not a Typewriter when it came out in 1989. Dicklyon (talk) 03:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

According to the article, the figure dash (‒) is the same as the minus sign (−), but they are not the same.

1+2−3 not equal to 1+2‒3

Another example:

−‒−‒− ‒ − ‒ − ‒

In my font at least, they are not the same height or width, and only the minus sign corresponds to the plus sign.

Hyphen:
+-=-
-+-=

 =====
 -----

Minus sign:
+−=−
−+−=

 =====
 −−−−−

Figure Dash:
+‒=‒
‒+‒=

 =====
 ‒‒‒‒‒

- Omegatron 21:13, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

The figure dash U+2012 (‒) is a dash with the exact width of a number, the minus sign U+2212 (−) is reserved for math operations. I'll try a rewrite. — Jor (Darkelf) 21:42, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out the reason they got mixed up, I think U+2012 was for some reason confused with U+2212. Both are used only with numbers, and of course 2012 looks like 2212. They are now properly distinguished in the article. — Jor (Darkelf) 21:53, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I also posted on the manual of style talk page. - Omegatron

Copied here and expanded:

634‒5789 is from the Steve Cropper/Eddie Floyd song of the same title originally recorded by Wilson Pickett in 1966, which also appeared in the Blues Brothers 2000 movie. Most phone companies world-wide refuse to give out the number, because for the past few decades since the song appeared on air it's being called many times daily. It has been covered by Jon Bon Jovi, Tina Turner, and many other artists. — Jor (Darkelf) 22:53, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

this is really strange -- I keep hitting an edit link for "Dash usage question", the last one on the page, twice now, and I get the "== The phone number ==" section, not the section I am trying to mess with. By any chance is the excess spacing between the equals causing trouble? This unsigned msg is older than 22:35, 8 May 2005; most editors will not want to waste their time on it. --Jerzy•t 21:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

When does one use the comma, and when does one use a dash (and of what type)? In fact, where are parenthesis more appropriate?

I guess these questions are directed as regards British usage – or more particularly, Hiberno–english practice – seeing as I'm in Ireland!

Zoney 15:51, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Simplified rule: if you can replace it with parentheses, you can also use an em dash (or en dash if that is your preference). A comma does not demark a break in thought — a sudden change of topic or an inserted statement — but is used for listings, or pauses in conversation, instead. Generally you should be able to drop the part enclosed with em dashes or parentheses without breaking the sentence, but you cannot do that with commas. — Jor (Talk) 17:31, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Can't say as I totally agree with that last bit about commas. A subordinate phrase set out with commas can be deleted without mangling the sentence. "Joe Blow, the famous poove, was seen in heavy traffic last week." You can take out "the famous poove" and all you are missing is a little disambiguation. But that's not what I came here to talk about. ;Bear 23:06, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

It's over-simplified, not meant to be fully correct. To give an example of my own: "John Doe — you might remember him from TV — was in the mall today.". Contrast to "John Doe, known from TV, was in the mall today.", and compare with "John Doe (you might remember him from TV) was in the mall today." In the dash or parenthesis case, the marked-off section is not part of the sentence but is added in, while in the comma case the marked-off section is a part (if not an essential part) of it. — Jor (Talk) 23:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It seems that the em dash and the semi colon are similar to each other, in that they both are stronger than a comma, but less than a period. From the usage I have seen, the em dash seems closer to a comma, and a semicolon seems closer to a period. Am I correct in this? Should this be added to the article? Thanks, --Pordaria 19:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the dash is what it is. It isn't "more or less" like a comma or full stop. I think the article should describe the uses in their own right. -- Evertype·✆ 22:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

How formal is the passage in question? Dashes are usually considered less formal, and the semicolon may be the stuffiest punctuation of them all.69.137.249.80 (talk) 12:02, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

In the article 16th century is this phrase "that century which lasted from 1501-1600"

As I see it, if you are going to use from then you should use to instead of a dash (of whatever variety). ;Bear 23:06, 2004 Apr 14 (UTC)

Correct. Or drop the 'from'. — Jor (Talk) 23:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

To quote Wikipedia's own Semantic progression article:

Semantic progression describes the evolution of word usage - usually to the point that the modern meaning is radically different from the original usage.

Which dash should be used in this case? Seems like an em dash is called for (or you could replace the dash with a simple comma), but no fitting example is given in the Dash article. -- Itai 22:21, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

CMS ed. 15, 6.88, "An em dash or a pair of em dashes sets off an amplifying or explanatory element." This seems to be described in the article as a parenthetical phrase. - Nunh-huh 22:29, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Under en dash it states:

The en dash (–) is one en in width: the width of the capital N in any particular font. The en dash is by definition exactly half the width of an em dash.

Under em dash it states:

The em dash (—) is defined as one em in width: the width of the capital M in any particular font. By definition the em dash is twice as wide as the en dash in any particular font.

In a face where the "N" is not half the width of the "M", which definition wins? Jake 20:11, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Both here and in linked articles (em dash, en dash) there's the frequent assertion that en = 1/2 em, which is emphatically not true, as can be demonstrated by experimentation with different fonts. As a generalization, em spaces and em dashes are usually designed to be equal to the point size of the font, so that 1 em equals 12 points in a 12 pt. font. Also as a generalization, en spaces and dashes are designed to be equal to the width of numerals, so that as an expedient, tables can be aligned without the use of tabs. This deserves more research, but empirically, 1 en = 2/3 em might be in the right ballpark. Philosophy of the type designer or type house seems to come into play: for instance, some em and/or en dashes appear to incorporate a small amount of white space to the left and right of the character; some don't. Some fonts do appear to use 1 en = 1/2 em, but if ever that was an inflexible rule, I doubt it extended much beyond 1900. Display faces (i.e. those designed for brief passages of text, in advertising or decorative uses), and condensed faces, tend to jettison such rules. If for instance a condensed face were to use em dashes equal to the point size, the dashes would then be the same length as that in the uncondensed version of the font, and therefore felt as disproportionate by the reader. Paulownia5 20:25, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I would assume the "M" and "N" definitions, since they are the "em" and "en" dashes. I have only seen the double width definition on WP. - Omegatron 21:16, Jun 2, 2004 (UTC)

So should it be "The en dash is often exactly half the width of an em dash."? Presumably this is only true in proporionally spaced faces. Jake 19:30, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I've found a citation concerning the widths of em and en dashes and propose it replace the ^{[citation needed]} which appears in the last sentence of the third paragraph of the "Em Dash" section. However I can't edit the page because it's Move-protected and I'm not sure how to get permission to make the change (I'm a newbie to editing Wikipedia pages).

If someone else knows how to do this, here's the reference titled "En Dashes and Em Dashes" I would cite which is from the tip archive at the Get It Write Online website (whose authors' credentials appear authoritative enough). TIA. (Martnym (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC))

Google says both:

1. "It is, in fact, the width of a typesetter's letter "N," whereas the em dash is the width of the letter "M"—thus their names."
2. "em dash (which is the same width as the letter "M," — ) and the en dash (which is about half the width, the same as the letter "N," – )"
3. "An “em” is a unit of measurement defined as the point size of the font—12 point type uses a 12 point “em.” An “en” is one-half of an “em.”"
4. "In traditional typesetting, an em is defined as the width of the uppercase M in the current face and point size. An em-dash was traditionally the width of the capital M, an en-dash was half the width of a capital M and an em quad, a unit of spacing material usually used for paragraph indentation, was the square of a capital M. In screen representation, an em is more properly defined as simply the current point size. For example, in 12-point type, an em is a distance of 12 points. An em quad is always a square of the size of type to which it belongs. So, an em quad of 12pt type is 12pt high x 12pt wide."
5. "en dash (typesetters used to call it a "nut"), which is a little longer than a hyphen, and the em dash (a "mutton"), which is the longest. Technically, an em dash is as long as the point size of the type; that is, if your type is 12 point, the em dash is 12 points long; if your type is 36 points, the em dash is 36 points long. The en dash (the "nut") is half the width of the em dash."
6. "em - A unit of relative measurement originally derived from the width of the letter M. Fonts are scaled so that 1 em = point size."
   • "em dash - By definition, a dash the width of an em"
7. "em - A unit of measure, which is the square of a face's point size. Traditionally, the width of a face's widest letter, the capital 'M.' For instance, if the 'M' is 10 points wide, an em is equal to 10 points. By Microsoft: A unit of measurement equal to the current type size. For example, an em in 12-point type is equal to 12 points."
   • "em dash - One em wide, the em dash indicates missing material or a break in thought. Spaces may be added to both sides of the em dash."
8. "em: A measurement of linear space used by typographers in which the unit is as wide and as high as the point size being set; twice the width of an en. So named because the letter "m" in early fonts was usually cast on a square body."
   • "em dash: A dash the width of an em space. "

So traditionally em was the width of an M, and in modern digitized fonts it is the point size of the font. Whether the en is half or N sized, I don't know. - Omegatron 21:49, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

Great research Omegatron. From this I suspect we should go with "en dash (typesetters used to call it a "nut"), which is a little longer than a hyphen, and the em dash (a "mutton"), which is the longest. Technically, an em dash is as long as the point size of the type; that is, if your type is 12 point, the em dash is 12 points long; if your type is 36 points, the em dash is 36 points long. The en dash (the "nut") is half the width of the em dash." An "N" is usually half as wide and an "M", so an en dash is often the the width of an "N", hence the name. Jake 22:38, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but paraphrase. The quotes above are literal quotes from (probably) copyrighted websites. So just condense the information from all of them into one paragraph (and maybe delete them from this page afterwards? I don't know if we need to worry about that.) And mention that "traditionally it is the size of an M, but in modern usage is the point size of the font". - Omegatron 13:54, Jun 4, 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether "Google says" and a bunch of only semi-agreeing quotes tells us much, without naming what the sites in question were. Some sources are a lot more authoritative than others! In any case there are three separate points with differing truth values. The definitions of what an em and en are today are well known in typography and yes, an en is half an em, and yes an em is equal to the point size (just as it was in metal). Whether the em was ever truly equal to the width of letter M (or en the width of N) is dubious at best: plenty of old foundry metal typefaces have survived for centuries, and there is no such exact relationship apparent. Finally, in modern digital typefaces, most type designers make the em dash one em wide, and the en dash one en wide, but it is not universally true the way it was in metal type, when the dashes were generic and typeface-independent. - Thomas Phinney (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I believe you about the pair of statements "an en is half an em" and "most type designers make the em dash one em wide, and the en dash one en wide". Almost all fonts that I've looked at have an en dash that's significantly more than half the width of the em dash, like these hyphen, en, em: - – — ; something is amiss here. Dicklyon (talk) 06:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The first statement is simply definitionally true. I'd cite from the many typography testbooks that I keep on my bookshelf (several of which I contributed to), except they're packed in boxes because I just moved to another city. I base the second statement on four things: (1) the many fonts I've examined in my career of working full-time with fonts; (2) the fact that it is standard practice enforced in all or almost all the fonts made by Adobe (certainly in my time there), and thanks to Adobe's leadership role in digital type design, many others followed their lead; (3) online discussion among type designers and typographers on Typophile.com; (4) in-person discussion among a group of type designers and typographers at an ATypI conference. I should add that I probably used the wrong wording when I said "most type designers": I should probably instead have said what was done "by most professional type designers" or "in most professional quality fonts." I'm sure that most free fonts don't follow these guidelines. Also, by "most" I don't mean an overwhelming majority, just anything over half. As an example, Microsoft's recent "ClearType fonts" are a perfect microcosm. Calibri and Corbel have irregular en dash widths, while Candara, Cambria, Constantia have en dashes that are one half the em dash. (Not counting Consolas, because it's monospaced.) Thomas Phinney (talk) 07:40, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe my experience is mostly with a less-recent set of fonts. Quick test shows you're right on many, but that Ariel, Helvetica, Tahoma, and Bauhaus 93 (not an exhaustive search) have en dash distinctly wider than half an em dash. Since I was using Helvetica since the 1970s, and various other classic and hack fonts since then, I thought this was typical, and the "half" thing always appeared to be just objetively wrong. It does appear in old typography books, I know, but seems to have been used or not by type designers over the years as they saw fit. Dicklyon (talk) 16:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The article currently says that the en dash is "is roughly the width of the letter n" which is only true in the same general sense that it is roughly the width of the minus sign, or roughly the width of the letter u, or whatever. In other words, it's misleading, not definitional and shouldn't be there. I will also point out that the Typophile wiki—edited almost exclusively by typographers rather than lay people or whoever feels like it—defines the en dash as "A horizontal line character one en in width—-half of an em space. " (http://typophile.com/node/40385?) And with this point, I think I'm just giving up on the article. There's still lots of nonsense about the em dash being related to the cap M width and the en dash to the lowercase n, which is true only indirectly if even that. It's all superstition, and I'm tired of fighting it. Maybe I'll change my mind once I have my books unpacked and can give further references, but I doubt it. Instead, I think I will be sure to give the correct definition and origins in every general typography talk I do in the next year, starting with the HOW Design Conference later this month. Thomas Phinney (talk) 08:17, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, hey, look at the last entries on this very Talk page. I looked this up in some of my typography manuals months ago, and found a 3-to-1 ratio in favor of the definitions I've been pushing here, including the most authoritative works. Also zero support for the cap-M and lowercase-n stuff. Thomas Phinney (talk) 08:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Despite all the suggestions to the contrary in the article, Safari 1.2 on 10.3.4 displays every single one of the dashes correctly. This can be verified by dragging-and-dropping each of them into the "Favorites" section of the Character Palette and then selecting them. The "Character Info" section at the bottom of the palette will then tell you what Unicode character you're looking at (e.g. "horizontal bar" or "em dash"), and for all of the examples in the article it reports the correct one.

By the way, this is also true for all of the spaces listed in the spaces article except for the Ogham space and the medium mathematical space.

Now, many/most of these kinds of characters (glyphs?) appear in only a few fonts--often just the system's default (Lucida Grande) or, at best, Big Caslon and some of the CJK fonts with a gazillion characters. I'm guessing that Safari is just using whichever font it can find to display the characters, which most of the time is probably Lucida Grande.

FWIW.

--anonymous WP newbie

Safari uses a system-wide “fallback” mechanism, available to any program, in which it selects a glyph from another font if one isn't available in the requested font. — Chris Page 01:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Though we, and every serious written material, should make the correct usage of dashes I really don't think most people know that there are different types, let alone use them. Perhaps there should be a mention made that these rules are very formal and most people ignore them anyway? violet/riga 16:52, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Many people posting on the Internet ignore the basics of grammar and punctuation. Ignore those people. The em dash and en dash aren’t that formal—one’s interchangeable with parentheses, and the other’s for ranges—and most of the other dashes are specialized. I for one always use em dashes instead of hyphens, partly because I have a Mac and it’s easy (shift-option-hyphen). —Frungi 01:59, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

While you say that the em dash is interchangeable with parenthesis, that is not necessarily true. Firstly, the em dash has many uses and not all are interchangeable with parenthesis. But secondly, even with the usages that are interchangeable with parenthesis, there is usually a best choice between the two. And when you say that you use em dashes instead of hyphens, I sure hope you mean that you use em dashes where you mean to use the mark of punctuation that is a dash, and hyphens where you mean to use the mark of punctuation that is a hyphen. They are strictly distinct marks of punctuation with different meanings, and they are not interchangeable. You will confuse readers by using them interchangeably. Don't think it matters? Check out how it's done in printed material.--76.124.187.93 (talk) 22:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

50–60% or 50%–60%

50–100 W or 50 W–100 W

- Omegatron 01:01, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

I would go with the first of each pair. HTH HAND --Phil | Talk 08:35, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

I would tend towards the first, but I think it's really a style issue, so consistency is key. Most people read both "50–60%" and "50%–60%" as "fifty to sixty percent", so the prior may be easier to read. From a dimensional standpoint, 50–60% is meaningless; it isn't even a range, so no confusion should come from it. (That is, as written it is meaningless and the only obvious interpretation is the correct one.) One might even argue that it's clearer than 50%–60%, which might be misconstrued as subtraction. Dimensionally, 50–60% can't be a subtraction. If I were using "to", I think I'd say "50% to 60%" because it is visually more united as a range. —BenFrantzDale 18:48, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Or is it simply an example in which "to" should be used instead? - Omegatron 20:17, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Generally one aims to repeat as few characters as possible, but as many as necessary for clarity; thus the first of each pair would be preferable. As regards the use of 'to': unless the text is represented in a table, an online menu or button, or some other location where space is at a premium, 'to' is always preferable. In such a case, one would also write 'per cent' rather than using a percentage sign; and 'watt' in full rather than in abbreviation.—Zoe Ocean 11:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoe Buchanan (talk • contribs)

Although I eliminated the self-reference, currently this article reads like "A Wikipedia editor's guide to dashes", with a very strong focus on their use in web pages, rather than an overview of dashes in general. In particular, nothing of their history is mentioned. While I don't doubt the general applicability of the material to all web pages, we could do with a lot more information on dashes. Derrick Coetzee 01:48, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The first line or the article reads:

A dash is a punctuation mark, and is not to be confused with the hyphen, which has quite different uses.

The next thing to appear is this table:

So is it a hyphen, or isn't it? - Vague | Rant 05:42, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)

It isn't. However, in ASCII it shares the same glyph. The article details this historic error, and why 0x2D should not be used to represent a proper dash. Jordi·✆ 13:40, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The problem is that this article is about many things and seems to loose focus. This article is about the various dash-like characters, about the varying semantics of these dash-like characters, and about their use on computers. The opening sentence of this article right now is incorrect in as much as this article is about all dash-shaped glyphs. I think this article would be more clear if it went like this:

1. Introduction
2. Discussion of the many dash characters (hyphen, en, em, minus, figure, three-to-em, swung, etc.)
3. Discussion of the many meanings dash-like glyphs fill (compound adjectives, number ranges, semantic dash, subtraction, quotation, etc.)
4. Discussion of choice of glyph to use for each meaning (e.g., semantic dash can be “—” or “ – ” or when those aren't available “ -- ”, etc.)

This approach would isolate the grammar, style, and typography debates and allow the reader to understand each aspect in turn. —BenFrantzDale 07:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

"Em dashes are sometimes used in lists of definitions, but this is not considered correct usage: a colon should be used instead."

Other style guides I've checked seem to agree with that. Where then does this (wrong?) use of the em dash come from? Is it confusion with another dash? Jordi·✆ 03:55, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you so much for these articles and the judicious redirects. — Peter Hitchmough

Should the wave dash be listed as a dash? Thoughts and comments please.

Is that the same thing as a tilde? - Omegatron 22:35, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

To my mind tilde is a diacritic, indicating missing letters, nasalisation etc, but computer people do use it to refer to a character used on its own at letter height, which I'd rather call swung dash (or "wave dash" if you like). Swung dash currently forwards to tilde. Flapdragon 11:01, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Can someone give an example of usage for —.

The em-dash—which is the widest dash in common usage—can be used to set off parenthetical remarks (at least in English). —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 13:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks —— Ezeu 14:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The initial definitions of en- and em-dashes use the unicode template, and look different (at least, in IE) from actual uses of &ndash and &mdash. I assume the unicode template is correct - so the article should at least use it consistently.

The corollary of this is that whenever you want to make an en- or em-dash in Wikipedia, you should not use the HTML entity, but instead the unicode template or a copy-paste...? ··gracefool |☺ 03:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

both should be correct, the unicode template just forces certain fonts on IE to increase the chance that it manages to render something but thats not nessacery for dashes. Any differences you see are just font differences (just like a and a are both perfectly valid renderings of the letter a) Plugwash 12:01, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Not really. The Comic Sans MS font is invalid because it's against Wikipedia policy (unless there is some special reason to use it). I find the different dash renderings confusing because they can look like other dashes... ··gracefool |☺ 00:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Well if your looking at it that way the ones without the unicode template are more correct because they are in the same font as the standard wikipedia body text. The ones with the unicode template are forced to an alternate font in IE (this is done due to IEs lack of decent code for finding a character from the availible fonts and should only be done where its actually required) Plugwash 00:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

This page needs to mention the use of long dashes in bibliographies. ―BenFrantzDale 07:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Super-long! (DIV, 128.250.204.118 02:19, 20 July 2007 (UTC))

On the public computer that I am using, the swung dash is not correctly depicted. It appears as a skinny vertical rectangle.

It's not visible here either (shows as a ? in firefox for me). I suspect the machines we are using simply don't have any appropriate font installed. Plugwash 18:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The text says that a math-mode command $\sim$ should be used in LaTeX for the swung dash. However, the use of a math mode command for a text mode symbol because it 'looks right' is bad TeX. My immediate thought for the text-mode equivalent is \textasciitilde, but that's too short. JadeNB 19:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

As a grammar junkie, I completely agree with the desire to mark what is correct as opposed to what looks right. Computer systems and programs will eventually catch up with correct usage. It behooves us to use the glyphs correctly.

Svyatoslav (talk) 04:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The en dash can also be used as a hyphen in compound adjectives in which one part consists of two words or a hyphenated word:

• pre–World War II period
• anti–New Zealand sentiment
• high-priority–high-pressure tasks (tasks which are both high-priority and high-pressure).

I'm not familiar with this use of en dashes. It would be nice to have a reference for further reading. (What I have read recommends not using hyphens in compound adjectives.) Eric 11:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

A quick Google search brought up some links: [1][2][3]. The last of these is kind enough to cite CMS 14 rule 5.117 on page 188. I suppose a citation is in order. —BenFrantzDale 13:20, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I've also seen and used this. It's equivalent to the semicolon replacing the comma in long clauses. — DIV (128.250.204.118 02:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC))

Which dash (if any) is to be used in a date, e.g., 2006-02-23? — Chris Page 01:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard it mentioned. I just use a hyphen. —BenFrantzDale 02:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

If you are following ISO 8601, you must use a hyphen. —mjb 23:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Dashes are very commonly used in lists to separate a term from its definition (or similarly related pieces of information), like this:

• A - the first letter of the alphabet
• B - the second letter of the alphabet
• Wikipedia - a major contributor to no work getting done

My question is, which dashes are appropriate for such lists? —mjb 00:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't it say em dashes are sometimes used, but colons are better? — Omegatron 03:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I missed that, but there's no citation given. Who says colons are "more correct"? Dashes (as in, space + hyphen + space) seem to be extremely common, especially in 'External links' sections of Wikipedia articles. I doubt colons would go over too well there. —mjb 05:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The "Summary" section has a prescriptive tone - which is undesirable and at odds with the rest of the article - and is directed at the reader. It would be easy to change it to the passive voice, eg "... the figure dash is used", but I'm not sure this is best either. Nurg 23:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

What sources support using an em dash in open ranges? For open ranges that are years specifically, CMS 14 rule 5.115 requires an en dash. I can't find any comment on other types of numbers in CMS. —Naddy 15:11, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

So what dash do you use if a word doesn't fit on a line, and is cut in half by a dash in-
between syllables?Mrdebeuker 21:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

hyphen. Dicklyon 22:56, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course 'in between' is two words, not one, so that hyphen doesn't belong (although the question itself is still valid). JadeNB 19:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Can we please not use the text itself as an example for the text itself? Set examples of typography apart from the text in their own boxes, so they can be compared, aren't changed by editors who don't understand them, are clear to people who have never encountered them before or don't speak the language, etc.

I just passed on this article and was offended by that fact, so : I totally agree. For Christ's Sake, please don't use the text itself as an example of the symbols... that just doesn't make any sense! It's a shame on the objectivity of Wikipedia. --EepP

See also Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_self-references#Self-referential_content. — Omegatron 16:41, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Good point. This should definitely get changed. —Ben FrantzDale 10:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

These examples look good. There should be better example text, but neither The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog nor Lorem ipsum have dashes in them. Is there any canonical example text with dashes? —Ben FrantzDale 13:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

In editing the subsection on the en dash I found one occurrence of hyphen–minus, and elsewhere hyphen-minus (with a hyphen, not an en dash). There are arguments for each form: if hyphen modifies minus, a hyphen would be used, by the criteria in the article itself; but if the entity is as much a hyphen as it is a minus, so that it could equally have been called minus–hyphen, then arguably the en dash is called for. I changed things to the form with the en dash in the subsection I edited; but the whole article should be consistent in this (especially when one considers that its topic is dashes). So which form is better? Personally, I don't care very much. I just strive for consistency – especially consistency within a whole article. Noetica 00:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I was tempted to make those changes to en dash myself, but after searching books and things, e.g. on unicode, I found that it was always written with a hyphen. Since that seemed to be an offical name, I figured it was not subject to my opinion on better grammar, so I left it. If you change it, including moving the hyphen-minus article, I won't complain, but somebody might. Dicklyon 16:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense to render that as "high-priority, high-pressure tasks"? If a task is both, say, urgent and difficult, you wouldn't call it an "urgent-difficult task", you'd call it an "urgent, difficult task". I can't think of a context where one would naturally compound the two adjectives "high-priority" and "high-pressure".

yes, I agree, that one is lame example. We should find a more plausible one. Dicklyon 16:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the following two lines, the first clearly is using dashes, while the second clearly has hyphens. Yet if you click on "edit this article", they look exactly the same in the edit box. What's going on here?

time–of–flight

time-of-flight

Flarity 21:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Your browser's font must not have different symbols for each. — Omegatron 00:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That's the answer. They look different here. —Ben FrantzDale 01:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

So why is the edit page font different from the regular font?Flarity 06:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses a fixed pitch font in the edit box, presumablly because it makes stuff like table code easier to read. Plugwash 11:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This article mentions the dash being used as a method of quotation when writing conversation. It directs the reader to the "quotation dash section" of the Quotation Mark article, but such a section does not exist. How dashes are supposed to be used in the place of quotation marks remains a mystery, based on how the articles currently stand. 69.64.3.12 15:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)Derek (Better late than never). In some languages, e.g., French and Hungarian, conversations are often rendered thus:

— Where have you been?

— Shopping.

— Oh? What did you buy?

— Nothing in the end.

— Well, that's something.

These are considered quotations from the speakers. kovesp (talk) 00:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

From the article, "They can also be used around parenthetical statements – such as this one – in place of the em dashes preferred by some publishers..."

That, I daresay, is the most absolutely fucking brilliant thing I think I have ever read on Wikipedia. My intense respect to whoever contributed that.

69.113.219.44—The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 07:20, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

It's an ugly sentence. What would make it better? —Ben FrantzDale 12:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the article, the en dash can be used as “a connection between two things of almost any kind….” It then goes on to list some examples that fit this definition:

1. Notre Dame beat Miami 31–30
2. New York–London flight
3. Mother–daughter relationship
4. The Supreme Court voted 5–4 to uphold the decision.
5. The McCain–Feingold bill

I was not aware this was proper usage of the en dash. As I understand it, in all five of those cases, the hyphen is appropriate. This usage should be verified and cited (if it is indeed proper).—Kbolino 11:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

In other words, we should add a ref so that the many people who would ordinarily use a hyphen in such cases will learn the error of their ways. Just about any book on writing will do. pick one. Dicklyon 18:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's a source that corroborates my understanding: [4]. I'm going to rewrite the section to clarify the difference of opinion, and cite these resources.—Kbolino 00:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

That's looks like a peculiar minority opinion, or a bad choice of examples. The example of "Taft-Hartley Act" where "Taft-Hartley" is a "simple compound word" ignores the usual distinction between a simple compound noun used as an adjective and a pairing of two nouns; they give no examples of the former, where hyphen are appropriate, and instead give the latter, where it is not, according to all authorities that I'm familiar with. I think they just messed up in the choice of examples. Do some more looking around before deciding if this point of view is anything but an outlier. Dicklyon 05:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

To say nothing of the oddity of "simple compound word", eh Dicklyon? When I went to school, simple and compound were as much polar opposites as red and green are! –Noetica 06:11, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Agree that compounds like "The McCain–Feingold bill" should have en-dash, to show that the Bill relates to two people, viz. McCain and Feingold. Using a hyphen suggests that Mr. or Mrs. McCain-Feingold proposed the bill. It is obvious in compounds such as 'the Kingston-Smith–Wang law'.

The article should be changed!

—DIV (128.250.204.118 02:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC))

Imagine a New York-London flight: it sounds as if it links New and York-London!

(Some authorities recommend spacing the en-dash in this case, i.e. "New York – London". There is a risk that this is confused with the em-dash, though.)

—DIV (128.250.204.118 02:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC))

I've added a FACT tag to the relevant sentence in this article. I have seen the en dash used for "Foo-Bar Theorem" in one and only one place: other wikipedia articles. I assume this practice did start elsewhere but it does seem a little unlikely that the article text claiming that it is more common than the hyphen for this practice is correct. Quietbritishjim (talk) 17:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Dicklyon, you removed this text:

Some argue that the unspaced em dash risks introducing exaggerated spacing, in full justification.

Your edit summary:

given the confusion, let's just omit the weasel words; if there's a source for who thinks what about this, we can add it

What confusion, in the section in question? For sentence-level punctuation, some publishers prefer em dashes (spaced or not), and some prefer spaced en dashes. And they have their various reasons. The words you struck out were not weasel words. (Look at that article's definition; Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words does not respect that definition, by the way.) If you think that the text needs a citation, then say that: don't just delete it. The sentence simply attempts to give one reason for publisher's choices, and is perfectly comprehensible. Comprehensible, but wrong! In fact the sentence was originally about the spaced em dash. I'll now restore it to say what it originally said, and expand it.

The confusion is as represented in the previous edit someone made, indicating a difference of opinion as to whether it should say spaced or unspaced. But since it was in a weasel-word sentence with "some argue" (one of the examples on the weasel words page you cite) instead of any attribution, there was no way to verify which meaning was correct, or intended. So I took it out, hoping that if someone had a verifiable point to make they would put it back with the required source. So did you find a source to back up the "some argue" or an attribution for who argues which way? If not, it doesn't belong. Dicklyon 00:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

There was much that was confused in the wording of the section, in fact, though the basic message was quite clear: practices vary, and different reasons are appealed to. I have now fixed things so that even the details are clear. If we were to apply the standard you invoke (just here), Wikipedia articles would be a thicket of citations and attributions, or would be bloodless and uninformative affairs indeed. There is a balance to be struck.

As the sentence now stands, its content is scarcely disputable at all, since res ipsa loquitur:

The spaced em dash risks introducing excessive separation of words: it is already long, and the spaces increase the separation. In full justification, the adjacent spaces may be stretched, and the separation of words is further exaggerated.

What could be clearer? How and why would anyone dispute it? Why would anyone single it out, among all of Wikipedia's assertions, and among the assertions in this article, as in special need of an attribution? Would you like me to go through removing all assertions that lack an attribution?

Time would be better spent on conscientiously fixing the article's structure. That is most muddled and confusing.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 01:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you have removed the unsubstantiated "some argue" claim and replaced it with plain facts; good job. However, don't try to invoke that argument that just because a flaw with respect to policy is widespread we should not hold any particular case up the policy. Dicklyon 01:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Fine. Generally, let's work constructively to improve articles for the benefit of readers, and not simply remove valuable material that has become corrupted by others' thoughtless editing. As for the policies, they are generally valuable; but they should not be invoked in a draconian fashion, or we'd all be in trouble. Wikipedia could not function as it does with either a too strict or a too lax attitude to "official" policies, which are themselves often made up on the run by editors pushing agendas of their own.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 02:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Anomalocaris, you have now seen to it that the article has a dozen references to The Chicago Manual of Style, hugely outnumbering appeals to all other authorities. The article is therefore biased against other established practice, especially practice outside of America. I may well apply a marker disputing its neutrality, for that reason. Please respect NPOV. I'll try to find time to restore some balance. – Noetica^♬♩ Talk 23:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

In some compositional styles farther from Chicago :-) , such as in Portuguese, the em dash must be enclosed with spaces, unless followed by a comma. I am now using Openoffice.org Writer and have difficulty in producing em dashes (maybe just temporary ignorance); the PC keyboard combination Alt-0515 seems to produce something that looks like it, though too similar to an en dash. Some word processors do have a key combination for it.

Also, though the soft hyphen is mentioned, there is no mention to the hard hyphen, a hyphen that is present wether hyphenation occurs or not (that's not the same as the regular hyphen!), and can be combined with a soft hyphen to produce the correct hyphenation of portuguese hyphenated words (WordPerfect had it, Word, AFAIK, never had.) For instance,

  "entendamo-nos" is expected to be hyphenated on a line break to
  "entendamo-
  -nos"
  not
  "entendamo-
  nos"

That required a soft hyphen followed by a hard hyphen. Most current word processors do not produce the correct hyphenation for portuguese and do not allow it to be produced either. Portuguese is the sixth or seventh most spoken language in the world though, when it comes to buying word processors, it must be far down the list. Xyzt1234 18:23, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Regarding my removed comments about the 'The Elements of Typographic Style' Applied to the Web, the Trebuchet MS font (which I use exclusively) en dash (–) and em dash (—) are much shorter than in Times New Roman (–) and em dash (—). Hence, using en dashes in this font is essentially useless since it looks only barely longer than a hyphen/minus sign (-). However, the figure dash (‒) is longer than the en dash. Font differences need to be explicitly pointed out in this article--and why not everyone agrees to the use of specific dashes (en, em, figure, whatever!) related to font differences. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 10:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I can sympathise. I tend to use em dashes myself, partly because I have grandiose Victorian-style pretensions;). And you're quite right that the font makes a difference. If you can find some good sources on this, I agree that it would be a good addition to the article. garik 11:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Er, since when have references mattered on guideline/policy pages? Seems "consensus" (consensorship) takes precedence! <eyeroll> ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 11:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe so, but this isn't a guideline/policy page. This is an encyclopaedic article about dashes. The relevant guideline/policy pages are here and here. garik 12:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

For example in any sport, where two teams have the same amount of points in the standings, the use a dash (I'm not sure which) for the second one in place of a position number, which dash would be used in that case? Bsroiaadn^Talk 22:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Standard for years is 2001 - 03. 2001 ‐ 03. Londo06 15:11, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

What's up with that? Why are you going through and replacing en dashes in date ranges with space hyphens? Is there a source for this abberant "standard"? Dicklyon 16:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The usage of the em-dash is different in different countries. In Poland we have many long dashes and they have spaces around. Some kind of long dashes, whether em-dashes or another kind of simmilar length, is also used to separate dialogs in prose:

-- How are you? -- I asked him.

-- I am -- he said with some hesitation -- fine.

In German books I read there were single quotes and commas:

'I am', he said, 'fine'.

When using em-dashes for dialogs, one can not embed a pause into the characters words, but instead an ellipsis could be placed:

-- I am... fine.

Em-dashes are acceptable in plays (drama):

HAMLET

To be -- or -- not to -- be...

Because there is no narration -- a drama is simply a long dialog with some comments.

When it comes to aesthetics -- most people probably prefer what they are used to. It is simmilar to source code indentation wars, however, when already consistently used, some styles may be supreme to others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.17.205.182 (talk) 13:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Should this entry not refer to what is, as opposed to what should be? If so, then it needs to emphasize that different states, different languages, different editors have different rules with respect to hyphens and dashes. While the article does a fine job in emphasizing this in may places, it may be important to expand such emphasis with respect to other languages (like Polish and German). In other words, if you know differently, please add to the article. Svyatoslav (talk) 04:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Something I'd like to see in the article is info about what kind of dashes are appropriate for sports scores and win-loss records. For example, The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 9-8 to finish the regular season with a record of 90-73. —mjb 23:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

That should be endash (–) not a hyphen (-) and that is covered at WP:MOSDASH. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

"The em dash is used in much the way a colon or set of parentheses is used: it can show an abrupt change in thought or be used where a full stop (or "period") is too strong and a comma too weak." Shouldn't colon (:) be replaced by semicolon (;) in that sentence? My understanding is that semicolons indicate a separation of line of thought; colons indicate an expansion: consequence, description, clarification, etc.

Another issue: "Alone among punctuation that marks pauses or logical relations in text, the unspaced em dash disables [variable spacing] for the words between which it falls." Isn't that also true of the slash (/)? Ayla (talk) 23:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I wish to suggest that we add a Cleanup request on the Dash page. The entire page seems very unorganized, and many parts can be joined together. What do you think?

Lelandrb (talk) 23:32, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup notices tend to just sit on the article gathering dust. It's usually best to do the cleanup yourself. — Gwalla | Talk 17:02, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I wonder whether it is common in English to use a dash in the case of a non-parenthetical apposition or relative clause – which would call for an example in the article then. --Quilbert (talk) 15:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Which dash style should be used in chemical formulas? This isn't listed here or on the chemical formula page. I have text with items such as "-COOH". Wakablogger2 (talk) 03:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)Wakablogger2

I think that's actually a hyphen. It shows a point of connection (in this case, a covalent bond to some other part of the molecule), much like referring to a preix (like "un-"). — Gwalla | Talk 17:01, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I removed this phrase because it is not encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not a style guide. I'm not debating the merit of it, however the statement as it is currently written is not verifiable since it is a prescription. It is not an encyclopedia's place to tell readers what "the important thing" is. – flamurai (t) 05:00, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I have removed it again. If someone wants to put it back, it will be have to be in the context of someone who makes the claim. If I want to make a document with inconsistent typography, then what's important is that the usage is inconsistent. It was a pointless bit of editorializing and deserved to stay removed. Nohat (talk) 22:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, too, but it would be OK to attribute it to some of these books. Dicklyon (talk) 23:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"...Chinese character which means one in both Chinese and Japanese." I suggest renaming the first "Chinese" to "Hanzi". Benlisquare (talk) 11:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Unicode consortium refers to them as Han characters, IIRC. —Tokek (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Many popular media players use the “⟨Artist⟩ - ⟨Song⟩” format, as in “The Beatles - Yesterday”. Does anybody know who invented that and whether there is any agreement as to the separator character? 78.110.162.163 (talk) 10:58, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

The separator character is, in all cases I've seen, an ASCII "hyphen-minus", which has ambiguous semantics. I don't think there's any agreement on what sort of dash this should be considered (it's obviously not a true hyphen or a minus sign). — Gwalla | Talk 19:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

While the character you see is always the woefully ambiguous "hyphen-minus", the meaning is a dash which would mean either an em-dash or a spaced en-dash. That is, either “The Beatles — Yesterday” or “The Beatles – Yesterday”. —Ben FrantzDale (talk) 03:21, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Hey the paget is currently blocked, however could someone add the latex formatting from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Formatting ? basically it says that hyphen = - en dash = -- em dash = --- minus = $-$ *** —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.232.144.109 (talk) 02:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I haven't managed to get the Ctrl–Numberic Hyphen or Ctrl–Alt–Numeric Hyphen to work on Windows Vista. I have to access the numpad via a function key on my laptop keyboard, so maybe that messes with it. But is anyone sure it works? Tophtucker (talk) 04:35, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

See footnote in Alt code. Fgnievinski (talk) 03:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering why we claimed the en dash is half the width of the em dash, so I did a book search, and sure enough there are quite a few books that say so; on the other hand, it is demonstrably incorrect in most modern fonts and books. What's going on here? Dicklyon (talk) 15:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

You and I started having an edit war on this point. You're right, there are quite a few books that have it my way, as half the em dash. From my bookshelf, notably: Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, Felici's Complete Manual of Typography, and Binns' Better Type. However, Strizver's Type Rules does the same thing as your suggested edit. There are several other typography texts which I whose current editions I had input into before publication, and I'm pretty sure they all have the "half the width of the em dash" definition.

As for what's going on, originally in metal type, the dashes were not part of a specific typeface, but were font-independent. The em dash was the width of the type size, and the en dash was half that.

In digital type, the dashes are physically font-specific, and there is nothing forcing the type designer to follow the standards. So some of them do not. That doesn't mean there isn't a standard, though. Almost all fonts from Adobe follow the traditional widths for the en dash and em dash. Microsoft's core fonts have widths based on Adobe's fonts, and do the same. Most, but not all, other fonts bundled by Microsoft follow the traditional widths. Ditto most decent quality typefaces in general.

(I have along the way here noticed that my own typeface Hypatia Sans has an en dash which is slightly off of the correct value. Either this is just an error (in which case it's entirely my fault), or... I have a faint recollection that Robert Slimbach talked me into this, but I am not entirely happy with it. Oh well.)

I would suggest that we revise the wording to say something like: "Traditionally the en dash is half the width of the em dash, and hence half the point size of the font. But not all digital typefaces follow these traditional values. Monospaced typefaces are an obvious exception, and divergence from the standard, is fairly common for fonts which are noticeably condensed or extended." How does that sound?

We also need to get rid of the silly references to capital M and lowercase n. These are apocryphal and have no support from any major authoritative source that I know of. (A good example of what I hate about concensus-based editing, btw. But then again, the wording I propose above is a good example of improvements being made from concensus-based editing.)

Thomas Phinney (talk) 02:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

More recent sources say that the en and em dash lengths are not standard or related to letter widths (in all typefaces, although they may be in some): [5]. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm seeing a formatting problem, not just here but elsewhere.

In the "En-dash" section, where it says "recommends that the word to be used", the underlying source code clearly shows that the word "to" should be italicised, making a clear and grammatically correct sentence. However — on my system at least (Mac OS 10.4.11) — it doesn't appear italicised, making nonsense of the sentence: that is, coding like this no longer appears to make words appear in italics in the main article. This has been the case for a few months. Paul Magnussen (talk) 15:22, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

In Victorian novels, a long dash is sometimes used in the same way an asterisk can be, to hide part of a taboo word, for instance 'D——' instead of 'Damn'. Also, in dates in such novels, it often says 18—— instead of, say, 1848. Why is that? --193.128.72.68 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC).

[...]often demarcates a parenthetical thought—like this one—

Ha! Love it. Torgo (talk) 10:41, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

• Confused* Why are there multiple kinds of dash at all? It just seems so unneccessary...

Furius (talk) 13:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Because they're all out of their minds bro. And you love it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.7.236.88 (talk) 12:01, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

This article gives the following as an example of the use of an em dash: "such as Darth Vader's line "I sense something, a presence I have not felt since—" in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope." While a line from a well-known movie might be a good source for an example when talking about grammar, Darth Vader spoke this line, he did not write it. Most users of this article would be interested in how to use the different dashes when writing, so a written example of an em dash should be used instead. Gary (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm removing the bit about figure dashes in phone numbers from the section on figure dashes. As was determined during a discussion at WT:MOS, phone numbers actually use the standard keyboard hyphen, not a figure dash. Therefore the current bit is factually incorrect.oknazevad (talk) 23:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There does not seem to be any coverage of the dash in 19th-century literature. It was often used to mask profanities:

"Oh, damn it, I've lost my horse."

would be printed as:

"Oh, — it, I've lost my horse."

giving rise to the common euphemism "dash it" for "damn it".

It was also used in other ways, such as a character in H.G.Wells who was not given a name and was referenced once in the text as "Mr. —".

While such usages are obsolete today, it may be useful to mention it in the article. -- B.D.Mills  (T, C) 00:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree: that would be worth mentioning. Why don't you add it? The first place to start is to look for any sources that discuss this, and base your contribution on these sources. If anyone is aware of such sources, please suggest them here (or contribute to the article). garik (talk) 17:43, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for "dash it?" It sounds like a simple substitution of a similar word. Without such,

it hardly seems a novel usage given the substitution of punctuation (mixed, a series of asterisks, etc.) for profanity in modern text. Mister Dash also doesn't seem very notable, but perhaps that's just because it's intuitive? Mr. X, Mr. —, Mr. ___ --Belg4mit (talk) 23:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Since dashes are a common way to create horizontal lines in ASCII/plain text (as with the hyphen and underscore), shouldn't that be mentioned in the article? --Cab88 (talk) 07:13, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Michael Quinion's World Wide Words has an article on three dash-hybrids; the commash, semi-commash, and colash here. --Palnatoke (talk) 09:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I have little typesetting knowledge; I apologize in advance if these questions are stupid. From the article: "The figure dash (‒) is so named because it is the same width as a digit, at least in typefaces with digits of equal width (fixed width fonts)." My questions are:

1. Doesn't the term "fixed width font" mean that everything (numbers, letters, symbols) is the same width?
2. Do there even exist fonts where the letters and symbols are variable-width, but the numbers are fixed-width?
3. If the answer to #2 is "yes", then is there a better term for these than "fixed-width font"?

--RSLxii 19:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

1. Yes.
2. Not only do they exist, but they are the norm. Most proportional fonts still have fixed-width numbers (also called "tabular figures" in the biz).
3. You are correct that the parenthetical use of the phrase "fixed width fonts" is inappropriate in that context. I'll go fix it.

Thomas Phinney (talk) 02:09, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

The figure-dash section needs an example of usage. The meaning of "when a dash must be used within numbers" is not obvious. 207.188.235.142 (talk) 15:19, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I replaced it with "while other consider". If Garner's "Modern Usage" is any similar to the Garner "Legal usage", then the book does not say anything like "most people use dash". --Enric Naval (talk) 04:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I seemed to be getting into an edit war with an anonymous user, but I realized that their point was that the dashes in question have no real Unicode value, and therefore the use of multiple em dashes was the next best thing (though it may be seen as dashes with spaces between, which isn’t quite right). So I reverted my last edit and added a note on correct visual representation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tphinney (talk • contribs) 21:38, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Glad we could agree on this. I'm not seeing any space between the dashes, but also realize that this rendering will vary depending on the reader's system (browser, font preferences, etc.)... I suppose the only guaranteed way to address this would be an image of the characters, though it's less than ideal. —67.246.119.98 (talk) 00:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps that's my fault. I have a font that contains the characters, so I initially added them here. Aside from the issue of font support (same as with any "obscure" character), it seemed the right thing to do. Upon further research, it seems the characters were approved by the Unicode Consortium, but haven't been all the way through the ISO standard ratification yet. ⇔ ChristTrekker 17:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

You are right, they were accepted in principle for Unicode last February. But they are not yet in the current published version of Unicode or the Unicode charts (version 6.0 at the moment). We know these two characters will become U+2E3A and U+2E3B, but it is probably a bit early to try to use them in text. Let's check back in another six months or a year and see if common browser viewing fonts have them. Thomas Phinney (talk) 04:06, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is there an underscore at the top of the punctuation navbox? An underscore is not a dash, but merely a "dash-like character". 129.10.231.145 (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Good catch. It was added back in January by an IP editor without explanation. I'm going to go ahead and remove it. If there were to be a second character there, it would make much more sense for it to be an em dash. Princess Lirin (talk) 01:13, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

For instance, the section about the Em dash says: According to most American sources (e.g., The Chicago Manual of Style) and to some British sources (e.g., The Oxford Guide to Style), an em dash should always be set closed (not surrounded by spaces). But the practice in some parts of the English-speaking world, including the style recommended by The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (because of the narrow width of newspaper columns), sets it open ... . Now let's look in the following section, "En dash versus Em dash": Various style guides and national varieties of languages prescribe different guidance on dashes. For example, "Dashes are treated differently in the US and UK. In the US, an em-dash with no additional spacing is used. In the UK a spaced en-dash is preferred."[14] As an example of the US style, The Chicago Manual of Style still recommend unspaced em dashes. It's cleverly rewritten, but with no doubt a repetition of what was already said in the previous section. That's why I propose that one of them be removed or (severely) cut down. -andy 217.50.60.6 (talk) 23:56, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree, I'll tag the article as requiring copyeding. The en dash section also has problems with that e.g. "usage guidelines" follows "Ranges of values" and "Attributive compounds", but those two are exactly the main cases where most usage guidelines prescribe using an en dash. There are some clarity issues as well (aren't prefixed adjectivals attributive compounds?) Tijfo098 (talk) 12:58, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Finding the prescriptive style guide is not much trouble. But are there any corpus studies on how closely those are followed? The perennial edit wars over our MOS:ENDASH suggest that's an interesting topic. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:04, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

[6] has interesting comparison of English and Russian punctuation use (from corpora), but they don't distinguish between hyphen and en dash, but only between those and [em] dash. Tijfo098 (talk) 12:30, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

A copy of CGEL's chapter on punctuation (but with a kludgy character encoding) can be found at http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/CGE.html. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 16:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I have removed this section. I intended to cut and paste it here, but with the Wikipedia system below par today, this is quite difficult without surplus minus signs.

In any case, I have three objections;

• This is a how-to guide; one of the things Wikipedia is not.
• Insofar as it is not, it repeats information from other sections, including the same examples.
• It is misleadingly phrased. Can be used, with the rest of the article, is true; is used implies is only or normally used, which is false. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, though your edit summary calling the section a falsehood reminded me of your tendency to see lies in things that aren't perfectly to your liking. I had removed some duplication and tried to reorganize a bit, as the Chicago recommendations were in there twice and not really explained. I trimmed back to just the non-duplicative parts, more or less, and avoided making any observations about "is used" or "should be used". Go ahead and improve it if I didn't go far enough, or too far. Dicklyon (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is a falsehood (what implies F is itself F) - which is why I said so; the present text is much better. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that section seemed mostly redundant, but I had not gotten around to preening it. Is the last paragraph in it (about spaces around en dashes) covered elsewhere? It's a minor point that's probably self-evident from all the examples, but it might be worth retaining. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

If you think so; looks like part of the self-help typesetting guide to me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

When describing compiler and linker switches, which dash should be used? For example, GCC has -Wall, -Wextra, -fstack-protector , and -fstack-protector-all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noloader (talk • contribs) 21:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Programs always use hyphen, not dash, for flags. If you use a monospaced font they'll look more normal. Dicklyon (talk) 21:33, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

They use the ASCII hyphen-minus. In fancy, typeset renderings of manpages, it is sometimes depicted using a minus sign, but regardless, only the hyphen-minus works. --Cybercobra (talk) 22:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys. Hyphenation sucks in xsltproc and fop (DocBook in general?). They have managed to take a simple concept and make it unduly complex. Jeffrey Walton 06:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noloader (talk • contribs)

There seems to be something missing from this sentence which is in the section of our article titled "Ranges of Values". Wanderer57 (talk) 02:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) recommends that the word to be used instead of an en dash when a number range might be misconstrued as subtraction, such as a range of units.

Wanderer57 (talk) 02:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I have just "tweaked" that section a little. Does that help to make clearer understanding of the sentence?

Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 11:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

May be there are some users with direct perception of Unicode code points, but they definitely do not constitute the majority. Practically, there are much confusion and incorrect use of these "similar characters" (most frequently en dashes instead of minus signs, even in Wikipedia, e.g. in recently created article nl:Hydroxide), and the knowledge about exact appearance of such characters may be useful to spot mistakes. In any case, it is easier to discuss something and then remove, than to restore something removed without consensus. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:22, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you give a diff for the undesired removal? -DePiep (talk) 10:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

[7]

I do not insist on these colors indeed, but you just removed it without offering any compensation. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

What did you have in mind? A bigger font maybe? Removing the )( enclusures? The description column is there, and other descriptive elements. I think I added clarity by creating the table, before that the lines were undiscernable. It didn't occur to me this was a "consensus" list, edits to be discussed first. -DePiep (talk) 13:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you give a diff for "creating the table"? By (removed) colors I mean only <font color="">s and <span>s, although… yeah, you selectively removed inverted parentheses around U+002D too. Please, re-check recent article history, read my postings again and only then post a reply. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Could you give a diff for "creating the table"? By (removed) colors I mean only <font color="">s and <span>s, although… yeah, you removed parentheses too. Please, re-check recent article history, read my postings again and only then post a reply. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:39, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)From the diff you gave, there is this pre-situation with the colors and no tablestructure. I developed the table in a sandbox, steps are now irrelevant. Which parentheses did I remove (apart from the CSSes I removed of course)? There is still )-( in the column. Must say, I do not quite see what you are pointing at. Is there elsewhere an illustration of what you'd prefer? -DePiep (talk) 13:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, so )( are missing in the first row. Why don't you just add them? -DePiep (talk) 13:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I hope that someone can clearly separate the page into typographic properties of the dash, and semantic issues surround what its usage *means*. I don't know how much this is done for other punctuation pages, but it greatly aids the reader who is looking for one or the other.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.10.148.201 (talk) 17:17, 7 April 2012‎ (UTC)

The problem is that several dash characters exist which are different both in intended semantics and appearance. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:56, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

All that white space below the opening words following the TOC: There are several forms of dash, of which the most common are:

I would not know where to begin, but would either Ed Brey or someone else with the formatting knowledge please improve this article's appearance!

Perhaps the first table could be moved lower down the page.

Regards, -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 21:37, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

True. It looked bad. The table "Common Dashes" was unusable as it overlapped the Template:Punctuation marks. It seemed to me the Common Dashes table had more pertinent information than did the generic punctuation template, so I made an assumption that hard info should ride higher than a link-basket. John Sinclair (talk) 00:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

edit -- After looking at the "Common Dashes" table, I think the rightmost 5 columns are of slim value. Everything right of the HTML/XML numeric character references column is highly specific to a niche of hardware|software users and subject to change with future hardware|software revisions. It's a lovely table, but maybe we should just narrow it to the first 5 columns? John Sinclair (talk) 01:18, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, it is a lovely table and the page appears to be much easier on the eye since your revision last night. Thank you, John. -- Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 06:05, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

This article contradicts itself:

Spacing
"En dashes normally do not have spaces around them..."

En dash versus em dash
"...The en dash—always with spaces in running text..."

Pollifax (talk) 22:01, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

True, because they're talking about unrelated uses. I've tried to make this clear, including taking out a highly misleading section head. GeorgeTSLC (talk) 18:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I do a lot of bibliography work and find it not only confusing but annoying having to work around and/or decipher the various codes used just to make a dash, etc. Frankly I am amazed at the amount of documentation that editors are supposed to know just to make a simple dash in between numbers, dates, etc. The dash by itself should suffice. If you need a double wide dash, use two dashes. Want the dash numbers to wrap around?: use the dash with spaces before and aft. What's worse is now we have bots buzzing around injecting these and other similar codes (including ' & n b s p' ) into all the pages. Is there a WP policy that says editors must use these codes in place of the dash, etc? Editors have to type seven characters just to make a dash. I realize that various control characters are sometimes used in the mark-up text but this is getting a little ridiculous. e.g.Seven characters just to make a dash?? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

You're in the wrong place: This talkpage is for discussions of how to improve the article on dashes, not to improve or get clarifications on Wikipedia policy. I think you probably want this page or this page. Happy new year! garik (talk) 20:54, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!! Will check them out. H N Y -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:34, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be nice to add some type of pronunciation note at the point these two items are introduced in the introductory paragraph. If not there, then where? Thoughts?Hagurganus (talk) 01:09, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

They're just pronounced "em" and "en", which can be found in any dict. Is this really s.t. that needs to be spelled out? — kwami (talk) 06:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

@ Hagurganus: I can hardly believe that I am reading this here. Tell us what is your natural language is, please!  –
 – Gareth Griffith-Jones/The Welsh Buzzard 09:41, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

"If not there, then where?" I think you're looking for wiktionary. — LlywelynII 09:54, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not only wrong, it's in complete violation of Wiki's own style practices. I'll remove the (bad) source and fix the text but, if it gets restored, could other editors kindly ensure that the lede does not

(a) Omit the very common use of en dash – with spaces around it – to set off text and

(b) Wrongly suggest that it is standard practice to use the em dash—which is nigh-universally used without spaces—in the manner of an en dash, with spaces.

There are people who use em dashes with spaces around them — hell, I'm one of them — but I do know I'm a minority opinion. — LlywelynII 10:00, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The previous version of the page had the punctuation mark sidebar moved halfway down the page to accommodate an exhaustive table of programming conventions for creating various dashes. I got everything to fit by breaking up all the {{key press}} templates being used, but if the final result isn't satisfactory to other editors, the solution is not to break MOS guidelines by putting the sidebar in the wrong place again.

(a) We could simply remove the "Compose key"; "vim digraph"; & "Microsoft Word key combination" entries; or

(b) We could move this table down to the bottom of the page under the programming subsection.

— LlywelynII 11:14, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey LlywelynII, in one of your more recent edits(Revision as of 11:04, 3 February 2013) you removed the visuals for keys on alt text, which by itself is no big deal and I don't really mind. But in addition to that, you forgot to add the 0 at the beginning of the codes, making it lead to ù and û instead of — and –. The code I'm talking about is ALT+151 and ALT+150, whereas its supposed to be ALT+0151 and ALT+0150. I'm assuming it was an accident.

What bothers me even more though, is the way you edit the pages. The recent edit history currently includes several incredibly redundant changes by you. Instead of saving the page over and over again between edits, just to look at the result. Press show preview, and do all your edits in one single save if possible. I mean you had like 5 pages, if not more, of just you repeatedly changing the same setting, over and over again. In total you did 21 edits in less than an hour of time, the great majority of them minor, if not all, which is unacceptable in any case.

This makes it pretty difficult to go through the edit history as I did due to the fault, to find the specific edit in question that caused it.

Another thing to note, please write summaries for you edits in the future, and don't forget to check the minor edit box when you do smaller edits.

Dux Ducis Hodiernus (talk) 11:43, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I endorse your comments above, Dux Ducis Hodiernus, entirely.
Here's hoping User:LlywelynII takes notice of them.
Cheers! –
 – Gareth Griffith-Jones |The Welsh Buzzard| 12:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh boy! It just dawned on me this morning that I have never typed a single dash (of whatever sort) during the one year I have (now and then) been making edits on the English-language wiki. The reason being: a) I keep forgetting that you use dashes by the bucketful in English, (so I write -- as we would in French, -- the India-Pakistan War, the employer-employee meeting, the North-South Dialogue, the 1939-1945 War, pp. 14-16, etc., etc., etc.); b) in the rare instances I suspect there should be a dash, I give up -- as I never remember how to type one. Hyphens are so user-friendly! (I'll try to amend myself from now on.)--Lubiesque (talk) 14:39, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm talking about this particular portion:

"Either version may be used to denote a break in a sentence or to set off parenthetical statements, although writers are generally cautioned to use a single form consistently within their work. In this function, en dashes are used with spaces and em dashes are used without them:"

Nowhere does the author of the reference make this claim and is, in fact, contradictory to his own usage of the parenthetical em dashes. I'm a noobie at wiki, I just felt I should bring it up so that someone who does know what they're doing can review my statement and make the change accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.229.234 (talk) 21:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, it's probably not the best ref for this info, but it does sort of support the point of unspaced em dash, and also the exception:

First, make the thing the right way. There are a few ways to do it, but generally, on a keyboard, you can do as follows: previous word/no space/two hyphens/no space/following word. Word-processing programs turn the two hyphens into an unbroken line that’s roughly the width of a capital “M” — hence the official name of this punctuation mark, the em-dash. (Some publications, including this newspaper, add spaces around dashes.)

but we should add a more explicit source. Maybe this one. Or this book. Dicklyon (talk) 21:59, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

I added a note in the section about using en-dashes to attach modifiers to open or compound phrases. It's not as a guide to style but rather to caution a writer that if things are getting this complicated, perhaps they should unpack the phrase instead. I couldn't find a good reference online but will try to find one on paper. Monado (talk) 16:15, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Interested parties are invited to participate: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Proposed_change_.282.29 startswithj (talk) 23:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Deleted 18:06, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

"The most common versions of the dash are the en dash (–) and the em dash (—), named for the length of a typeface's lower-case n and upper-case M respectively."

Then later in the article: "The widths of en and em dashes have also been specified as being equal to those of the upper-case letters N and M respectively,[8][9] and at other times to the widths of the lower-case letters."

The image should show lowercase n,m and uppercase N M. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.128.188.180 (talk) 14:29, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_(typography)#History has a good explanation with a good picture. Terrel Shumway (talk) 13:58, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

"Em and en re­fer to units of ty­po­graphic mea­sure­ment, not to the let­ters M and N. In a tra­di­tional metal font, the em was the ver­ti­cal dis­tance from the top of a piece of type to the bot­tom. The en was half the size of the em. Orig­i­nally, the width of the em and en dashes cor­re­sponded to these units. In to­day’s dig­i­tal fonts, they run narrower." ^[1]

See also: ^[2]

Terrel Shumway (talk) 13:52, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The quoted paragraph as written at PracticalTypography.com is misleading because it is too oversimplified, to the point of misstatement. They were trying so hard to explain to a total-novice reader that they created a misapprehension that the one has no relationship whatsoever to the other, which is false. There is in fact a relationship (a fuzzy historical one) between the letters M and N and the measurement units of em and en (and their names). The relationship is touched on in the linked WP section (Em_(typography)#Incorrect_and_alternative_definitions). And Words Into Type, third edition, one of the blue-chip references in typography (and thus one of the R-est of WP:RSs on this subject), makes clear that it exists (pp. 498, 501–502, 539). I agree that Wikipedia should explain it better. Not even Words Into Type explains it well enough; for example, it uses the phrase "the square of" in a nonmathematical way, falsely implying that an em would be (solely) a unit of surface area (which is not accurate). Still, it makes clear that a relationship exists. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:22, 4 August 2016 (UTC)