Write On!, 0618 WYBJ, Vol. 41 No. 3. 52

• Author: John H. Ridge, J.D., Ph.D. Superior, Colorado
• Position: Vol. 41 3 Pg. 52

Write On!

Vol. 41 No. 3 Pg. 52

Wyoming Bar Journal

June, 2018

John H. Ridge, J.D., Ph.D. Superior, Colorado

Common Writing Rules I Commonly Forget, Part Three

“What the semicolon’s anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist?

~ Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Hyphens, em-dashes, and en-dashes are being used with greater and greater frequency in legal writing. T is article—which is the third in a series addressing grammar problems that I repeatedly forget and frequently need to look up—addresses the easily forgotten and overlooked rules governing the uses of hyphens and dashes.

Hyphens and dashes have distinct sizes. The following chart illustrates and discusses the different sizes of these symbols.

Punctuation	Symbols	Comments
Hyphen	-	• The hyphen is created by striking the key to the right of the number “0” on a standard keyboard.
En-dash	–	• The en-dash is the same width as the letter n. • In Microsoft Word, the en-dash can be inserted similar to other symbols or by creating shortcut keys.
Em-dash	—	• The em-dash is the same width as the letter m. • In Microsoft Word, the em-dash can be inserted similar to other symbols or by creating shortcut keys. • Some word processing programs automatically convert double hyphens into em-dashes.
Double En-dash	––	• The double en-dash is created by entering two en-dashes in a row.
Triple Em-dash	———	• The triple em-dash is created by entering three em-dashes in a row.
Minus Sign	–	• The hyphen is most often used as a minus sign simply out of convenience. When it is used as such, it is referred to as a hyphen-minus. • As opposed to a hyphen-minus, a true minus sign is the same width as a plus sign. • The true minus sign can be inserted by striking the - sign on a numeric keyboard or by inserting it as a symbol in Microsoft Word.

There are specific rules governing the use of the above symbols. I have once again collected the most important rules into an easily referenced chart.^[1]

Punctuation	Rules	Examples
Hyphen	To help provide clarity, hyphens may be used to join two or more words into a compound modifier.	• The

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