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New Post 4/11/2008 11:51 AM
  khalsa44
1 posts


Use of Dashes 

What are the rules on the use of dashes?  The Greggs Manual says you can use them in place of the comma, the semicolon, the colon, or parentheses when you require special emphasis.  Do you think the sentence shown below is correct in the use of dashes?

Chanting is an easy tool because you can chant anywhere—out loud or silently—and change your state of being.

Thanks,

gmk

 

 

 
New Post 4/12/2008 9:27 AM
  admin
20 posts


Re: Use of Dashes 

Yes, that is correct. However, your note on the use of dashes ONLY refers to M-dashes. Those are the long ones—about the width of a letter "m" in some fixed-width fonts. 

N-dashes, the short dashes, are used for demonstrating a range, as in, "Every day, he ate 12 – 15 apples." Note: these shouldn't be confused for hyphens, which are even shorter and have different purposes.

 
New Post 4/13/2008 10:06 AM
  ggate
3 posts


Re: Use of Dashes 

I've seen some writing where the writer used A LOT of dashes. I guess they were Mdashes. At first it seemed pretty cool, kind of stylish, but after 5 or 6 on a page, I thought it was too much. It started to get really repetitive, and I started counting dashes instead of paying attention to the story.

 
New Post 5/10/2008 11:36 AM
  penner
4 posts


Re: Use of Dashes 

Couldn't I just use a couple of hypens? Or is that just lazy?

 
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