Types of Punctuation – Hyphens and Dashes – Beginner

Hyphens
Hyphens ( – ) are most often used to join two or more words and/or affixes to form a single and unique compound word. For example:
“Do you have any sugar-free cookies?”
“It is the only 10-storey building in the town.”
“My old-fashioned aunt would never approve.”
“I don’t mean to second-guess you, but you should check the work again.”
“This behavior is decidedly un-American.”
There are also several technical uses for the hyphens, such as when creating divisions in sequences of numbers or expressing ranges.

Dashes
There are two types of dashes: the en dash ( – ) and the em dash ( — ).
En dashes are the preferred punctuation mark (especially in publishing) to express ranges, scores, voting results, or connections between two people or things (although hyphens are very commonly used instead). For instance:
“We need you to submit your expense report for January–March.”
“I’ll be in the office 8:00 AM–4:00 PM this Friday.”
“The board voted 5–4 to accept the proposal.”
“We will begin boarding the Denver–Chicago flight shortly.”
“The Republican–Democrat divide on the issue has only widened in recent months.”

Em dashes, the longest of the dash marks, are most often used in place of commas or parentheses to give greater emphasis to parenthetical information. They can also informally stand in for colons when introducing a list or illustrative information. For example:
“Many fundamental aspects of living on one’s own—cooking, cleaning, doing laundry—are things for which many young adults are completely unprepared.”
“The committee—which I have helped set up—will investigate spending irregularities by CEOs of charities and other not-for-profit groups.”
“There are only two things I want to do on my vacation—sit on the beach and read books.”
“Remember—keep your friends close, and enemies even closer.”
Em dashes can also be used to represent omitted or censored words, as well as to indicate an interruption in written dialogue:
“Countess M——, a prominent member of the aristocracy, was in fact a leading contributor to the resistance.”
“You ———!” he shouted. “I’m going to make sure everyone knows the truth!”
“I don’t think this is a— ” he started to say when the branch suddenly broke.

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