The en dash is a sorely misunderstood mark of punctuation. In my experience, the poor bugger rarely sees the light of day, and when it does, it’s oft misused. Time and time again, I see manuscripts with hyphens in place of en dashes and en dashes in place of em dashes (which technically isn’t wrong, but more on that later). Thus, I’m going to try my hardest to do right by the underappreciated en dash by sharing with you the conventions of its use. Here we go.
Use #1: Ranges, or spans. Check out these examples:
- During the French and Indian War (1754–1763), George Washington cut his teeth (no, not the wooden ones) on the battlefield.
- For more information on man-eating tortoises, see chapters 10–12.
This is by far the most common use of the en dash; in essence, it represents “to” or “through.” You can use the en dash to declare ranges in page numbers, ages, watts, lightyears, and so on. However, there is one condition to using it in this way: parallel construction. The stylistic champions over at the Chicago Manual of Style say that when using an en dash to denote a span, a writer should never use the word ‘from’ in front of that span. Thus, the following is incorrect: The class will be held from 5:30–6:30. Instead, the word ‘to’ should be used: The class will be held from 5:30 to 6:30. Likewise, the word ‘between’ should never be used in conjunction with an en dash, which makes the following incorrect: Drop by between 4:30–5:00. Instead, ‘between’ should be used with ‘and,’ like this: Drop by between 4:30 and 5:00.
Use #2: Connections.
- The East Cobb Bombers won 8–0.
- My pops and I have a great father–son relationship.
- The Atlanta–Chicago flight has been canceled.
- If you don’t understand the classical Einstein–Cartan theory of gravitation, you’re not alone.
This convention is pretty straightforward but important. If you use a hyphen in these situations, you could end up with fatal reader-interpretations, such as this: We have a love-hate relationship. Here, the hyphen indicates that we love to hate, which is malarkey; who loves hate?! Likewise, another important distinction made in this use of the en dash is the connection of last names (as in EX.4, the Brans–Dicke theory, and the McCain–Feingold bill). Had a hyphen been used in EX.4, e.g., Einstein-Cartan, it would indicate a compound name, like Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Use #3: Compound adjectives with open compounds.
- Dwight Eisenhower achieved a lot in his post–World War II career.
Again, this use of the en dash is pretty straightforward. An open compound is two or more words that represent one entity (such as ‘ice cream’ or ‘car pool’). If you were to use a hyphen in these situations, the reader may misinterpret the compound adjective as only pertaining to the visually-attached words. For instance, pre–ball game ritual versus pre-ball game ritual; the former means “a ritual before the ball game” while the latter means “a ritualistic game before the existence balls.”
Use #4: An en dash as an em dash.
- Otis Spann – one of the greatest blues pianists – made a name for himself by playing with Muddy Waters.
Here’s where things get inky, because there is no universal convention. Most American style guides—Chicago Manual of Style, APA, AP, MLA—recommend using a true em dash to set parenthetical information apart from the rest of the sentence. However, in the United Kingdom, some style guides and major publications recommend using an en dash flanked by spaces (as per our example above). What’s important is that you decide on a convention and stick with it consistently. I prefer adhering to the conventions laid out in the Chicago Manual of Style, and I recommend that authors writing to American audiences do the same. (After all, our forefathers of English grammar gave us a plethora of punctuation marks to fit every need, so why not use them all?) But of course, if you want to use en dashes as parenthetical em dashes, by all means do so. There are no grammar police, and you actually have high-brow precedent-makers (like Cambridge University Press) to back you up. Just stay consistent, and remember that when it comes down to it, it’s the quality of your writing that matters most.
So there you have it: en dashes in a nutshell. Hopefully it’ll help you with your next writing project (or at least keep you writing instead of googling grammar tips!).
To aid in your en dashing, here are the key commands:
- Mac: Option + hyphen
- Windows: Control + minus sign
Until next time, I bid you good writing!