2022-10-31 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด H – Hyphens & Dashes
2022-10-31
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด H – Hyphens & Dashes
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Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง Hyphens = ‘HAHY-fuhn’
ออกเสียง Dashes = ‘DASH’
The A-Z of Correct English Common Errors in English Dictionary:
(i) Hyphens are used to indicate wordbreaks
where there is not space to
complete a word at the end of a line.
Take care to divide the word at an
appropriate point between syllables
so that your reader is not confused
and can continue smoothly from the first
part of the word to the second part.
There are dictionaries of
hyphenation available that will
indicate sensible places to break words.
They don’t always agree with each other!
You will also notice a difference in practice
between British English and American English.
Increasingly, however, the trend is
towards American English practice, i.e.
being guided by the way the word is pronounced.
Break the word in such a way as to
preserve the overall pronunciation as far as possible.
It is really a matter of common sense.
For this reason you will avoid breaking
father into fat-her
legend into leg-end
therapist into the-rapist
manslaughter into mans-laughter
notable into not-able
and so on
Note: that the hyphen should be placed
at the end of the first line
(to indicate that the word is to be continued).
It is not repeated at the beginning of the next.
The children shouted enthusiastically
as they raced towards the sea.
If you are breaking a word that is already hyphenated,
break it at the existing hyphen:
Both my parents are extremely absent minded.
Breaking a word always makes it look temporarily unfamiliar.
You will notice that in printed books for very young readers
word-breaks are always carefully avoided.
Ideally, you also will try to avoid them.
Anticipate how much space a word requires
at the end of a line and start a new line if necessary.
Whatever happens, avoid breaking a word
very close to its beginning or its end,
and never break a one-syllabled word.
(ii) Hyphens are used to join compound
The children shouted enthusiastically
as they raced towards the sea.
If you are breaking a word that is already hyphenated,
break it at the existing hyphen:
Both my parents are extremely absent minded.
Breaking a word always makes it look temporarily unfamiliar.
You will notice that in printed books for very young readers
word-breaks are always carefully avoided.
Ideally, you also will try to avoid them.
Anticipate how much space a word requires
at the end of a line and start a new line if necessary.
Whatever happens, avoid breaking a word very close
to its beginning or its end, and never break a one-syllabled word.
(iii) Hyphens are used to join compound numbers
between 21 and 99:
twenty-one twenty-five
fifty-five fifty-fifth
ninety-nine ninety-ninth
Hyphens are also used to join fractions
when they are written as words:
three-quarters
five-ninths
(iv) Hyphens are used to join compound words
so that they become one word:
my son-in-law
a twenty-pound note
her happy-go-lucky smile
You will sometimes need to check in a dictionary
whether a word is hyphenated or not.
Sometimes words written separately
in a ten-year-old dictionary will be hyphenated
in a more modern one;
sometimes words hyphenated in an older dictionary
will now be written as one word.
Is it washing-machine or washingmachine,
wash-basin or washbasin,
print-out or printout?
Such words need to be checked individually.
(v) Hyphens are used with some prefixes:
co-author, ex-wife, anti-censorship
Check individual words in a dictionary
If you are in doubt.
Always use a hyphen when you are using a prefix
before a word that begins with a capital letter:
pro-British, anti-Christian, un-American
Sometimes a hyphen is used for the sake of clarity.
There is a difference in meaning
between the words in these pairs:
re-cover and recover
re-form and reform
co-respondent and correspondent
(vi) Hyphens are also used to indicate a range of figures or dates:
There were 12 - 20 people in the room.
He was killed in the 1914 - 18 war
Common Errors in English Usage Dictionary
Hyphens & Dashes
Dashes are longer than hyphens,
but since many browsers
do not reliably interpret the code for dashes,
they are usually rendered on the Web
as they were on old-fashioned typewriters,
as double hyphens -- like that.
Dashes tend to separate elements
and hyphens to link them.
Few people would substitute a dash for a hyphen
in an expression like
“a quick-witted scoundrel,”
but the opposite is common.
In a sentence like
“Astrid—unlike Inger—enjoyed vacations in Spain rather than England,”
one often sees hyphens incorrectly substituted for dashes.
When you are typing for photocopying or direct printing,
it is a good idea to learn
how to type a true dash
instead of the double hyphen (computers differ).
In old-fashioned styles, dashes
(but never hyphens) are surrounded by spaces — like this.
With modern computer output which emulates professional printing, this makes little sense.
Skip the spaces unless your editor or teacher insists on them.
There are actually two kinds of dashes.
The most common is the “em-dash"
(theoretically, the width of a letter “M”
—but this is often not the case).
To connect numbers,
it is traditional to use an “endash”
which is somewhat shorter,
but not as short as a hyphen: “cocktails 5–7 pm.”
All modern computers can produce en-dashes,
but few people know how to type them.
For most purposes you don’t have to worry about them,
but if you are preparing material for print,
you should learn how to use them.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Usage Notes
A Guide to Em Dashes, En Dashes, and Hyphens
Be dashing—and do it well
Among punctuation marks,
dashes have a certain panache.
They take the reader aside,
and then draw that reader to the next bit
like a good dance partner in the lead.
There are various punctuation items
that can be described as dashes,
and we will get to them all,
but we’ll begin with the most useful, and most used.
It looks like — or sometimes
(as when one’s word processing program fails to convert it) –
- and it’s called the “common dash,” or “em dash.”
The two names are well-earned;
this dash is the most common true dash,
and it’s the approximate width of a capital M.
The Em Dash: An Introduction
The em dash can function like a comma, a colon, or parenthesis.
Like commas and parentheses,
em dashes set off extra information,
such as examples, explanatory or descriptive phrases,
or supplemental facts.
Like a colon, an em dash introduces a clause that explains
or expands upon something that precedes it.
The em dash is sometimes considered
a less formal equivalent of the colon and parenthesis,
but in truth it’s used in all kinds of writing,
including the most formal
—the choice of which mark to use is really
a matter of personal preference.
Spacing around an em dash varies.
Most newspapers insert a space
before and after the dash,
and many popular magazines do the same,
but most books and journals omit spacing,
closing whatever comes before
and after the em dash right up next to it.
This website prefers the latter,
its style requiring the closely held em dash in running text.
The Em Dash in Action: A New Direction
An em dash can mark
an abrupt change or break in the structure of a sentence.
Mabel the Cat was delighted with the assortment of pastries
the new bakery featured, but Harry the Dog—he felt otherwise.
An em dash can indicate interrupted speech
or a speaker’s confusion or hesitation.
Harry’s bafflement was apparent.
“That the bakers fail to recognize
the crucial importance of the cheese Danish—”
“Of course you have a point,” Mabel murmured.
“That is—I suppose it is concerning.”
The Em Dash in Action:
Attention Must Be Paid
Em dashes are used in place of commas or parentheses
to emphasize or draw attention
to parenthetical or amplifying material.
In this particular task,
em dashes occupy a kind of middle ground among the three:
when commas do the job,
the material is most closely related to what’s around it,
and when parentheses do the job,
the material is most distantly related to what’s around it;
when dashes do the job the material is somewhere in the middle.
The butteriness of the pastries
did say something about an appropriate level
of commitment to decadence—at least there was that.
And the wide range of its hours of operation—6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
—certainly showed concern for customers’ manifold circumstances.
Dashes set off or introduce defining phrases and lists.
A regular selection of three kinds of croissants
—plain, almond, and chocolate—was heartening,
both Mabel and Harry agreed.
The pies changed—apple year-round, for example,
but pumpkin in fall and winter, strawberry rhubarb in spring,
and peach in summer
—as the bakery’s devotion to fresh ingredients dictated.
And Harry was extremely pleased to see
the selection of available cakes
—both chocolate and yellow butter cake;
carrot cake; pound cake; lemon chiffon; and flourless chocolate cake.
An em dash is often used in place of a colon
or semicolon to link clauses,
especially when the clause that follows the dash
explains, summarizes, or expands upon
the preceding clause in a somewhat dramatic way.
Harry would never forget the Tuesday
that Mabel called him from the bakery,
her voice brimming with excitement
—the bakery had added cheese Danishes to its selection.
Nor would Harry forget his first bite of the Danish
she delivered to him.
It was revelatory—it was a cheese Danish nonpareil.
An em dash or pair of dashes often sets off
illustrative or amplifying material
introduced by such phrases as for example,
namely, and that is,
when the break in continuity is greater than
that shown by a comma,
or when the dash would clarify the sentence structure
better than a comma.
The bakery was truly phenomenal.
Although they did miss the mark somewhat
with the pineapple upside-down cake Mabel ordered
—that is, the cake had clearly been baked right-side up.
”You see,” Mabel averred,
“even a moderately keen observer can ascertain
—namely from its shape—a baked cake’s oven orientation.”
An em dash may introduce a summary statement
that follows a series of words or phrases.
Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter,
snickerdoodle, both macarons and macaroons
—the panoply of cookie varieties was impressive as well.
The bakery was also adept at deliciously
modifying recipes to meet any variety of dietary restrictions
—not an easy feat in many cases.
A dash often precedes the name of an author
or source at the end of a quoted passage
—such as an epigraph, extract, or book or film blurb
—that is not part of the main text.
The attribution may appear immediately
after the quotation or on the next line.
“One cannot underestimate the effect a good bakery
can have on a person’s well-being.”
—Mabel the Cat, The Websterburg Reporter
The bread sublime, the cheese Danish divine.
—Harry the Dog
The Em Dash in the Company of Other Punctuation Marks
If an em dash appears at a point
where a comma could also appear, the comma is omitted.
Within its first year,
Mabel and Harry had sampled all of the bakery’s offerings
—all 62 items
—and had also decided that the exercise was worth repeating.
When the bakery closed for the month of August
to give its staff a break—no one denied it was much deserved
—Mabel was forlorn.
When a pair of em dashes sets off material ending
with an exclamation point or a question mark,
the mark is placed inside the dashes.
Mabel tried, despite her dolefulness
—for how could she be otherwise?
—to bake her own bread but each loaf
that emerged from her oven tasted vaguely of tears.
When September arrived—finally!
—the yeasty perfume wafting
through Websterburg’s town square routed her darksome gloom.
Dashes are used inside parentheses, and vice versa,
to indicate parenthetical material within parenthetical material.
The second dash is omitted
if it would immediately precede the closing parenthesis;
a closing parenthesis is never omitted.
The bakery’s reputation for scrumptious goods
(ambrosial, even—each item was surely fit for gods)
spread far and wide.
The Other Dashes (Not Nearly So Dashing But Still Useful)
Remembering that the em dash is the length of a capital M,
it will surprise no one that
the so-called “en dash” is the approximate length of a capital N, –.
The en dash is the least loved of all;
it’s not easily rendered by the average keyboard user
(one has to select it as a special character,
whereas the em dash can be conjured with two hyphens),
so it’s mostly encountered in typeset material.
(A hyphen does its job in other text.)
It is most often used between numbers, dates,
or other notations to signify “(up) to and including.”
The bakery will be closed August 1–August 31.
The bakery is open 6:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
The exceedingly complex recipe spans pages 128–34.
Mabel and Harry lived elsewhere 2007–2019.
Note that one does not need words like
from and between in these cases.
The phrase “open 6:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.”
can be read as “open between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.”
or as “open from 6:00 a.m. to/until 6:00 p.m.”
If you want to be official about things,
use the en dash to replace a hyphen
in compound adjectives
when at least one of the elements is a two-word compound.
the post–Cold War era
The thinking is that using a hyphen here,
as in “the post-Cold War era,”
risks the suggestion that post attaches only to Cold.
It’s unlikely, though, that a reader would truly be confused.
The en dash replaces the word to
between capitalized names,
and is used to indicate linkages
such as boundaries, treaties, and oppositions.
a Boston–Washington train
the Websterburg–Oxfordville border
the pie–cake divide
night–day differences or night-day differences
A two-em dash, ——,
is used to indicate missing letters in a word and,
less frequently, to indicate a missing word.
The butter-stained and crumb-embedded
note was attributed to a Ms. M—— of Websterburg.
A three-em dash, ———,
indicates that a word has been left out
or that an unknown word or figure is to be supplied.
Years later it was revealed that the Websterburg
bakers had once had a bakery in ———,
a city to the south.
But the water quality there was prohibitive
to the creating of decent bagels.
A Hyphen Can Be Considered to Be a Kind of Dash
While we said above that the em dash,
also called the “common dash,”
is the most common of the true dashes,
hyphens show up more frequently in text.
They have a variety of uses.
Hyphens are used to link elements in compound words.
the bakery fan club’s secretary-treasurer
a baker-owner
In some words, a hyphen separates a prefix, suffix,
or medial element from the rest of the word.
Websterburg’s pre-bakery days
a bread-like scone
jack-o'-lantern sugar cookies
As we noted above,
a hyphen often does the job of an en dash
between numbers and dates,
providing the meaning "(up) to and including."
pages 128-34
the years 2007-2019
A hyphen marks an end-of-line division of a word.
Mabel and Harry don’t like to linger on their memories of Webster-burg’s pre-bakery days.
A hyphen divides letters or syllables
to give the effect of stuttering, sobbing, or halting speech.
"M-m-mabel, the cheese Danish is divine!”
Hyphens indicate a word spelled out letter by letter.
Let’s not even talk about August, when the bakery is c-l-o-s-e-d.
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