With em dashes: Mary and Jake put together lunch – cheese sandwiches with puff pastries and pizza slices – before they left for the lake. With parenthesis: Mary and Jake put together lunch (cheese sandwiches with puff pastries and pizza slices) before they left for the lake. But em dashes do that better, in part due to their width, which makes them more visually appealing. Just as I did right now.Ĭolons also help detail a list and draw attention to the information. Lots of ground to cover here, so let’s roll up our sleeves and dig into each point:Ĭolons are used to introduce independent clauses or information information that can be introduced in a separate sentence. Doing so will give you options of three dashes with the longest one being an em dash. 👉 Em dash in your phone: Head to your number keyword in your phone to press and hold the dash symbol (-). 👉 Em dash in a Google doc: Go to insert > special characters > search for em and you’ll get ‘EM DASH U+2014.’ 👉 Em dash on a PC: hit the alt + 0151 (from the numbers of your numeric keypad – not the numbers on top of the letters). Microsoft Word shows the em dash as soon you press enter after finishing the word. 👉 Em dash Word: tap the minus sign twice and continue writing. 👉 Em dash Mac: hold down the option + shift + the hyphen keys and viola! Here’s your cheat sheet for all operating systems:
How to type en dash in unix on mac how to#
Now that you know the difference between the two dashes, let’s show you how to make an em dash since there isn’t one on your keyboard (can’t believe word processors haven’t catched up yet, can you?). For a phone number, you take to hyphenation or using hyphens instead of n-dash. That said, if you were looking at dashes between phone numbers, those aren’t en or em dashes. You can also use an en dash to replace words like ‘and,’ ‘to,’ and ‘versus.’ In the em dash vs en dash above, you can write, em dash-en dash for example. Use an en dash when you’re giving a time range such as: Jan-Feb or number ranges like 1-9. Where an em dash takes the place for various punctuation marks – working to add emphasis, share an afterthought, and so on – the en dash denotes ranges. On top of it, both the dashes fulfil different responsibilities. There’s difference in the width chiefly with the en dash being a long dash, but one that’s shorter than the em dash and longer than a single hyphen. To begin with, both the n-dash and em dash look different. Ponton took it in good spirits.” So what’s the difference between em dash and en dashīefore we dive in any further, it’s important to address the em dash vs en dash struggle to save you from confusing the two. “It offered an injection of harmless levity when many people are experiencing a rough time - and Mr. In fact, it can help deliver the following jobs: It’s used in place of commas, semicolons, parentheses, and colons, which explains its widespread use.
When is an em dash?Īn em dash gets its name from its width, which is roughly the same size of an M. In this post, we breakdown what an em dash is, when to use it, and how to type an em dash among other essential details to help you decide which side of the camp you belong to. Some admire its use - almost finding themselves unable to go long without adding it to their writing (myself included 🙋) while others can’t stand its use. Thanks to its potential of giving writing a less business-y, more conversational touch, the em dash queen has developed a fandom of sorts among writers. Doesn’t it instantly ring a bell?Įnglish language’s latest darling, the em dash, can fit in nicely in place of several other punctuation marks including the comma, semicolon, and parenthesis. Chances are, you’re in the same boat as a younger me, using the em dash or the longest dash in the punctuation town without knowing what it’s called. For a long time, I wondered what an em dash was - all while using it in my writing.
0 kommentar(er)
