Among punctuation marks, dashes have a certain fanfare. They push the reader aside, and then drag that reader to the next part like a good dancer in the lead role.
There are different punctuation items that can be described as dashes and we’ll look at them all, but we’ll start with the most useful and most used. It seems — or sometimes (like when one’s word processor can’t convert it) — — and it’s called the “regular dash” or “em dash”. Both names make a lot of money; This dash is the most common actually dash, and it’s the approximate width of a capital M.
The Em Dash: Introduction
The em dash can act as a comma, colon, or parenthesis. Like commas and parentheses, dashes place additional information, such as examples, explanatory or descriptive phrases, or additional facts. Like a colon, a dash introduces a clause that explains or expands on something that precedes it.
The dash is sometimes considered the less formal equivalent of colons and parentheses, but in practice it is used in all styles of writing, including the most formal—the choice of Which accent to use is really a matter of personal preference.
The spacing around the dash changes. Most newspapers insert a space before and after the dash, and many popular magazines do the same, but most books and magazines ignore the space, closing whatever comes before the dash. and after the dash right next to it. This site prefers the latter, its style requires the em dash to be kept tight in the running text.
However, how to enter one depends on your machine.
Em Dash’s Actions: A New Direction
- The em dash can mark a sudden change or break the structure of a sentence.
Mabel the Cat is delighted with the pastries the new bakery is introducing, but Harry the Dog – he feels different.
- The em dash can indicate interrupted speech or the speaker’s confusion or hesitation.
Harry’s confusion was obvious. “That the bakers fail to realize the vital importance of Danish cheese—”
“Of course you have a point,” Mabel mumbled. “It’s – I think it’s worrisome.”
Dash is in action: Attention is needed
- Dashes Em is used in place of commas or parentheses to emphasize or draw attention to the material in parentheses or amplify. In this particular task, the dash takes an intermediate place among the three: when commas do the work, the document is most closely related to its surroundings, and when parentheses do the work. , the document most closely related to its surroundings; when the dash does the job, the material is somewhere in between.
The butteriness of the pastry says something about the appropriate level of commitment to decadence — at least it has.
And its varied operating hours—6 a.m. to 6 p.m. — certainly show concern for the diverse backgrounds of its customers.
- Dashes pose or introduce definite phrases and lists.
Both Mabel and Harry agree that the regular selection of three croissants – plain, almond and chocolate – is enjoyable.
The pies vary — apple, year-round, but pumpkin in the fall and winter, strawberry rhubarb in spring and peach in summer — depending on the bakery’s devotion to the ingredients fresh.
And Harry was extremely pleased to see the cakes available – both chocolate and buttercream cakes; carrot cake; pound cake; lemon chiffon; and flourless chocolate cake.
- Dashes are often used instead of colons or semicolons to link clauses, especially when the clause following the dash explains, summarizes, or expands on the preceding clause in some way. impressively.
Harry will never forget the Tuesday when Mabel called him from the bakery, her voice filled with excitement – the bakery had added Danish cheese to its list of options.
Nor will Harry forget the first bite of the Danish food she delivered to him. It was a revelation – it was a nonpareil Danish cheese.
- Dashes or pairs of dashes often set off illustrative or amplified material introduced by phrases like For example, detailAnd that iswhen continuous breaks are larger than commas represent, or when dashes clarify sentence structure more than commas.
The bakery is truly extraordinary. Though they were slightly off target with the upside down pineapple cake Mabel had ordered – that is, the cake was clearly baked upside down.
“You see,” Mabel asserted, “even a moderately discerning observer can determine – namely from its shape – the direction of the oven of a scone.”
- Dashes em can introduce a summary sentence that follows a series of words or phrases.
Chocolate chip cookies, raisin oatmeal, peanut butter, snickerdoodles, both macarons and macaroons—the variety of cookies is also impressive.
The bakery is also adept at modifying delicious recipes to accommodate any dietary restrictions—in many cases, this is no easy feat.
- A dash usually precedes the name of the author or source at the end of a quoted passage—such as an epic, excerpt, or introduction to a book or movie—that is not part of the main text. The attribute can appear immediately after the quote or on the next line.
“One cannot underestimate the effect of a delicious bakery on one’s health.” —Mabel the Cat, Websterburg Reporter
Great bread, divine Danish cheese. —Harry the dog
Dash Em in the company of other punctuation marks
- If the em dash appears at a point where a comma might also appear, the comma is ignored.
During the first year, Mabel and Harry tasted all of the bakery’s products – 62 in all – and also decided that the exercise was worth repeating.
When the bakery closed in August to give employees a break – no one would deny it was well deserved – Mabel was upset.
- When a pair of dashes sets out content that ends with an exclamation point or a question mark, it is placed inside the dash.
Mabel tried, despite her sadness – because how could she be otherwise? – bakes her own bread but every loaf that comes out of her oven smells of vague tears.
When September comes – it’s finally here! – the strong fragrance that wafted through the town square of Websterburg had blown away her gloom.
- Dashes are used inside parentheses, and vice versa, to denote the document in parentheses within the document in parentheses. The second dash is ignored if it is preceded by the closing parenthesis; a closing parenthesis should never be omitted.
The bakery’s reputation for scrumptious (even delicious – each one certainly fit the gods) goods is widespread.
Other dashes (Almost not so dandy but still useful)
- Keeping in mind that the dash is the length of the uppercase M, it should come as no surprise that the so-called “en dash” is the approximate length of the uppercase N, -. The dash is the least favorite of all; it is not easily rendered by ordinary keyboard users (one must select it as a special character, while the em dash can be combined by two dashes), so it is mostly encountered in typesetting document. (The hyphen does its job in other text.) It is most often used between numbers, dates, or other symbols to denote “(up to) to and including”.
The bakery will be closed from August 1 to August 31.
The bakery is open from 6:00am to 6:00pm
The extremely complex formula extends from pages 128–34.
Mabel and Harry lived elsewhere 2007–2019.
Note that one doesn’t need words like from And between in these cases. The phrase “open 6:00 am–6:00 pm” can be read as “open 6:00 am to 6:00 pm” or “open 6:00 am to/until 6:00 pm”
- If you want to be formal about things, use dashes to replace dashes in compound adjectives when at least one of the elements is a two-word compound.
post-Cold War era
It is argued that the use of hyphens here, as in the “post-Cold War era”, runs the risk of suggesting that parcel just attached Cold. However, it is unlikely that the reader will be truly confused.
- Dashes replace the word ARRIVE between capitalized names and is used to denote associations such as boundaries, pacts, and oppositions.
Boston-Washington train
Websterburg–Oxfordville border
cake-cake division
day and night difference or day and night difference
- The double-dash dash, ——, is used to denote missing letters in a word and, less often, to denote a missing word.
The buttery crumbly and buttery piece of paper is believed to have belonged to Miss M—— from Websterburg.
- A triple dash, ———, indicates that a word has been omitted or that an unknown word or number will be provided.
Years later, it was revealed that Websterburg bakers once had a bakery in ———, a city to the south. But the quality of the water there prevented the creation of delicious bagels.
Hyphens can be thought of as a type of dash
Although we said above that the em dash, also known as the “regular dash”, is the most common of the true dashes, the hyphen occurs more often in text. They have many different uses.
secretary and treasurer of the bakery fan club
bakery owner
- In some words, a hyphen separates a prefix, suffix, or intermediate from the rest of the word.
Websterburg’s pre-baking days
pies like bread
jack-o’-lantern sugar cookies
- As we noted above, the hyphen usually does the job of a dash between numbers and dates, providing the meaning “(up to) to and including.”
page 128-34
the years 2007-2019
- Hyphens mark the end-of-line division of a word.
Mabel and Harry didn’t like to linger on their memories of the pre-baking days in Websterburg.
- Hyphens separate letters or syllables to create the effect of stuttering, sobbing, or stopping.
“Mm-mabel, Danish cheese is divine!”
- Dashes indicate a word spelled letter by letter.
Don’t talk about August, when the bakery closes.
Categories: Usage Notes
Source: vothisaucamau.edu.vn
