When to use a dash A dash (specifically, an em dash) has a totally different purpose. It indicates a significant pause or surprising twist in a sentence.

It gets confusing because you use a hyphen when the descriptive phrase comes before the thing, but you don't when the phrase comes after: The chocolate-frosted cake was decadent.

The hyphens and dashes used in English writing are often used inconsistently, regardless of whether the writer is a professional or not. Mister Punctual, a blog that posts articles about ...

Grammar columnist and expert June Casagrande dives into why we use the em dash and the AI myths associated with it.

Hyphens (-) Hyphens are only used to combine certain words together. They are not strong enough to set off phrases or words from a sentence. Use hyphens in the following situations: Use in compound ...

I don’t talk much here about the en dash — the little punctuation mark that looks like it can’t decide if it’s a hyphen or a full-fledged dash.

How to use hyphen, en dash and em dash? As mentioned above, use a hyphen in intimately related concepts such as toll-free, tie-in, well-known and more.

Hyphens are shorter than dashes and are used to connect words. Dashes are used as punctuation in sentences. Find out more in a Bitesize KS2 English guide.

In the course of exchanging mail, the reader also wanted to know when to use a dash (hyphen) in a sentence. On this, language experts advice that where any other punctuation mark would suffice, a ...