![]() It is used to indicate a range of values or a relation between two values, such as “the March–October travel season” or “a final score of 4–3.” A handy rule of thumb for remembering this use is to simply substitute the word “to,” as in “a final score of four to three.” If the substitution works, you should be using an en dash.Įn dashes are also used in place of hyphens when making a connection between a prefix and a multiple-word compound or concept, such as “pre–World War II.” The same applies to connecting multiple hyphenates, as in “the pro-separation–anti-separation conflict.” The en dash is longer than the hyphen and shorter than the em dash. ![]() In practice, nearly everyone uses the hyphen-minus. Technically, there are separate characters for the true hyphen and the minus sign, but they have no keyboard shortcut. The shortest of the three characters, a hyphen is used for connecting multiple related words (“the three-year-old boy”) or syllables within a word (“co-workers”).Ī single stroke of the dash key on a conventional keyboard creates what’s called a “hyphen-minus,” the character used by most word processers and computers for both hyphens and mathematical minus signs. Knowing which one to use requires a bit of grammar expertise-and making them show up on your computer screen sometimes takes a keyboard shortcut or two.
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