Hyphens and dashes, oh my

[Jonathan Lighter]

Who cares?

JL

On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Hyphens and dashes, oh my
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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