Hyphens and dashes, oh my

[Joel S. Berson]

Aren't there three different things, hyphen, short (en) dash, and
long (em) dash?  I've been using hyphens between words
("high-falutin'"), short dashes between numbers ("pages 14--15"), and
long dashes between phrases.

Although Wikipedia on "Dash" is more high-falutin'.  In Wiki, by the
way, the en dash *is* permitted in "

Relationships and connections" -- as in the McCain--Feingold bill (my
two hyphens = one en-dash); and "Attributive compounds" -- as in (notably) "

Pre--Civil War era".  Wiki then goes on to

Differing recommendations, including CMofS.

Wiki also has a section there called

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash>En dash
versus em dash.

Joel

At 6/3/2011 09:37 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>What bothers me most is the use of long dashes for hypens, something I see
>in books more and more.  Extremely distracting: it looks like a new phrase
>is coming and not just the second element of a compound.

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