- hyphen-minus. Used for joining two words together (e.g. “see-through”) and as the maths “minus” symbol.
– (can type on Windows with alt+0150 on a numpad, or on Mac with option±, or on most phones by long pressing the hyphen key) en dash. Used for ranges (“5–10 pm”), or in the place of a hyphen with compound nouns (“post–Great Migration trends” vs “post-migration trends”). For these uses, it is not surrounded by any space. It can also be used in place of an em dash, if surrounded by spaces – like this.
— (alt+0151, option+shift±, long press) em dash. Used as a type of parenthesis, similar to the bracket (like this) or, in some cases, the comma. Used without spaces—like this.
The OP also uses what I called above an “emmm dash”, playing on the name of the em dash, which is so-called because it has a width of one “em” (basically, the width of a single character in typography), and this is three ems wide. It doesn’t seem to have a proper name in the typography field, though Unicode calls it “three-em dash”.
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I think the emmm dash’s main use is probably as a dinkus. Its Wiktionary entry says it can also be used to represent censored/redacted information or duplicate authors in a bibliography.
Urban Dictionary says it is “basically used in usernames to show off to other people”.
Can we get a refresher on the usage of the different dashes? I’ve forgotten everything I learned about them already
The bot has made us dumber
- hyphen-minus. Used for joining two words together (e.g. “see-through”) and as the maths “minus” symbol.
– (can type on Windows with alt+0150 on a numpad, or on Mac with option±, or on most phones by long pressing the hyphen key) en dash. Used for ranges (“5–10 pm”), or in the place of a hyphen with compound nouns (“post–Great Migration trends” vs “post-migration trends”). For these uses, it is not surrounded by any space. It can also be used in place of an em dash, if surrounded by spaces – like this.
— (alt+0151, option+shift±, long press) em dash. Used as a type of parenthesis, similar to the bracket (like this) or, in some cases, the comma. Used without spaces—like this.
The OP also uses what I called above an “emmm dash”, playing on the name of the em dash, which is so-called because it has a width of one “em” (basically, the width of a single character in typography), and this is three ems wide. It doesn’t seem to have a proper name in the typography field, though Unicode calls it “three-em dash”.
⸻
I think the emmm dash’s main use is probably as a dinkus. Its Wiktionary entry says it can also be used to represent censored/redacted information or duplicate authors in a bibliography.
Urban Dictionary says it is “basically used in usernames to show off to other people”.
Hence why I have two of them in mine