Many people use hyphens when, in fact, they should be using dashes. Simply put, hyphens are most commonly used to join words or to separate syllables of single words. There are other uses too, but I won’t get into a huge grammar lesson here. Now, the important thing is to realize that hyphens are very different than dashes. Dashes are longer than hyphens, and have specific uses:
The en dash (–) is wider than a hyphen but shorter than an em dash (more on this in a moment). The most common use of the en dash is for ranges of dates, time, or numbers. For example, ‘July 21–28’ or ‘ages 5–8’.
The em dash (—) is wider than an en dash. The most common use of an em dash is to indicate an abrupt change in thought, or a pause where a period is too strong, but a comma does not indicate a strong enough pause. For example, ‘I am sure of it—absolutely and complete sure of it!’ or ‘He said he would be here on time—forget it, I’m not waiting any longer.’
Now don’t get me started on the minus sign….
