{"id":188,"date":"2022-11-13T18:14:41","date_gmt":"2022-11-13T18:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/?p=188"},"modified":"2023-01-03T10:14:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T10:14:49","slug":"better-punctuation-whats-an-en-dash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/13\/better-punctuation-whats-an-en-dash\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Punctuation: What&#8217;s an En Dash?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Polish your writing with this often-missed punctuation mark.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s my first post on punctuation, and I&#8217;m starting with a mechanical, nuts-and-bolts topic that is useful to writers and proofreaders. It&#8217;s also a topic that was a revelation to me\u2014I&#8217;d never run across explicit teaching about dashes in my education or teaching until I did a proofreader&#8217;s course. But the en dash was there all the time, discreetly doing its job, letting itself be mistaken for hyphens and confused with em dashes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So first, what is an <strong>en dash<\/strong>? It&#8217;s a seldom-appreciated punctuation mark often usurped by a hyphen (or two hyphens), and it is the width of a capital <em>N <\/em>in types and fonts. For comparison:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>\u2010 hyphen  <\/li><li>\u2013 <strong>en dash<\/strong><\/li><li>\u2014 em dash<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What do I use an en dash for?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Correct usage of the en dash is fairly straightforward. To simplify, I will give it to you in bullet points. Please note that I am following <em>The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)<\/em> here, which is the standard style guide for book publishing in the US, however, <em>The Associated Press Stylebook <\/em>does not use en dashes at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Use en dashes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>To mean <strong><em>to<\/em><\/strong>:<ul><li>Our Madrid\u2013New York flight departs at 08:00.<\/li><li>Congress voted 400\u201330 to pass the Fairness for 9\/11 Families Act on September 30, 2022.<\/li><li>The Seattle Seahawks beat the Denver Broncos 17\u201316.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>In <strong>ranges<\/strong> meaning from <em>x <\/em>to <em>y <\/em>(up to and including\/through): <ul><li>In a 1997\u20132015 study, the EIA found that most American families owned 1\u20133 television sets.<\/li><li>Monday\u2013Friday, American History 312 will be held 09:00\u201310:00.<\/li><li>The company&#8217;s logo includes the range A\u2013Z (i.e., &#8220;everything from A to Z&#8221;).<\/li><li>Please see <em>Copywriting for Business Blogs\u00a0<\/em>(pp. 88\u201395).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>For unfinished ranges<\/strong>:<ul><li>Arturo P\u00e9rez Reverte (1951\u2013 ) is Spain&#8217;s best known historical fiction writer.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>For <strong>compound adjectives<\/strong> when one of the elements consists of an open compound or when both elements consist of hyphenated compounds:<ul><li><em>Good Lord Bird <\/em>is a John Brown\u2013inspired, pre\u2013Civil War historical novel and TV series. (Open compounds)<\/li><li>Many students in Spain go to semi-private\u2013semi-public schools. (Two connected hyphenated compounds)<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>In <strong>British English<\/strong>, the en dash is often <strong>used (with spaces before and after) instead of an em dash.<\/strong> (I will discuss em dashes in my post, <a href=\"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/25\/better-punctuation-mastering-the-em-dash\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Getting the Versatile Em Dash Right<\/a>).<ul><li>&#8220;More than 1.5 million supporters, from 180 countries, now power us financially \u2013 keeping [The Guardian] open to all, and fiercely independent.&#8221;<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mistakes in en dash usage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The most common error is to use a hyphen instead of an en dash. However, other errors can sometimes be hard to spot; <a href=\"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/05\/editors-and-proofreaders\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"copyeditors and proofreaders\">copyeditors and proofreaders<\/a> often need to double-check if an en dash or em dash is being used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be careful not to include words like <em>from<\/em> or <em>between<\/em> in combination with en dash ranges:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Our class tomorrow will be <em><strong>from 9:00\u201310:00<\/strong><\/em>. (Better: &#8220;9:00\u201310:00&#8221; or &#8220;from 9:00 to 10:00.&#8221;)<\/li><li>Our marketing team travels <strong>from London\u2013New York<\/strong> on Saturday. (Better: &#8220;from London to New York.&#8221;)<\/li><li>The price of eggs rose by 38 percent <strong>between July 2021\u2013July 2022<\/strong>. (Better: &#8220;between July 2021 and July 2022.&#8221;)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Codes and shortcuts for writing en dashes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no key for the humble en dash on your keyboard, but here is how to add one to your text:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>In <strong>Windows<\/strong>: hold down the <strong>ALT key and type 0150<\/strong> (this is the easiest and most versatile).<\/li><li>In <strong>Microsoft Word<\/strong>:  <ul><li>Use the command &#8220;insert symbol&#8221; and then select the en dash, <\/li><li>Use the keyboard shortcut: <strong>CONTROL + minus sign on the numeric keypad<\/strong> (you can add your own customized shortcuts), or<\/li><li>Go to Options>Proofing><strong>Auto Correct Options <\/strong>and set <strong>.en<\/strong> to be automatically corrected as the en dash sign. After that, just type .en in Word. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>In <strong>HTML<\/strong> and <strong>WordPress<\/strong>: write <strong>&amp;ndash;<\/strong> manually into your code. WordPress sometimes has a mind of its own with dashes. In the edit window, click on the contextual block menu, select <strong>edit as html<\/strong>, and write <strong>&amp;ndash;<\/strong> where you need it. WordPress will convert it to a visual en dash when you switch back to visual editing for the block.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For more contexts and Apple users, see &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wikipedia:How_to_make_dashes#:~:text=(em%20dash).-,Windows,dash)%20using%20the%20numeric%20keypad.\" title=\"How to make dashes (Wikipedia)\">How to make dashes&#8221; (Wikipedia)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope that clears up the most common questions about en dashes in your writing and proofreading. See also my post <a href=\"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/25\/better-punctuation-mastering-the-em-dash\/\">Getting the Versatile Em Dash Right<\/a>. Soon to come: posts about compound words and hyphens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polish your writing with this often-missed punctuation mark. Here&#8217;s my first post on punctuation, and I&#8217;m starting with a mechanical, nuts-and-bolts topic that is useful to writers and proofreaders. It&#8217;s also a topic that was a revelation to me\u2014I&#8217;d never run across explicit teaching about dashes in my education or teaching until I did a &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/13\/better-punctuation-whats-an-en-dash\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Better Punctuation: What&#8217;s an En Dash?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brentmillerediting.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}