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Paula looks at when to use these punctuation marks.
I consider myself fairly competent in the use of
punctuation, but confess to a mental block at times with the use of ellipses,
and em and en dashes.
So this post is as much to provide an aide memoire to myself as to instruct anyone else how to use them.
For all I know, you may not have any problem with them!
Ellipses: usually three dots … Wikipedia says: “Depending on their context and placement in a
sentence, ellipses can indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a
slight pause, a mysterious or echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence.”
Different style
books say different things about whether there should be spaces between the
dots, and also whether there should be three or four dots at the end of a
sentence, four dots indicating a period followed by the three dots.
Generally
speaking, I only use ellipses when a line of dialogue or a thought tails off,
but I’ve also used them to indicate a phone call when the character is
listening to someone else make the call, and only hears one side of the
conversation e.g. “Hi, Joe … Yes, sure. What time? … Okay I’ll be there.”
Em dash: the long
one — (equivalent to the width of the letter M)
En dash: the short one – (the same width as the
letter N)
These are the
ones which confuse me, because it seems either can be used to indicate a break
in a sentence, or an interrupted sentence (as distinct from a ‘tailed-off’ one).
They can also be used when inserting
a thought, explanation, or clause in a sentence when commas or brackets are not desired.
To confuse matters
even further, style guides differ on whether there should be spaces on each
side of an em or en dash.
Many publishers have
their own house style for the use of these dashes. My own publisher advocates
using the em dash (with no spaces either side) to show a break in thought
mid-sentence, or an interruption at the end of a sentence, and using the en
dash (with a space either side) for inserting an extra clause in a sentence.
Your publisher may
have different house rules but I’ll conclude with two important points:
Be consistent in how
you use any ellipses or dashes and, even more important, use them sparingly and
only when absolutely necessary. A reader doesn’t want to see a page littered
with dots and dashes!
I'll confess I'm always confused about the difference between em and en dashes.
ReplyDeleteI was too, but I think I've sorted them out now. I think the main thing is to be consistent in how you use them!
DeleteI've never given this any thought. I always use whatever looks right.
ReplyDeleteSo did I, Margaret, until my editor changed a lot of my long dashes to short ones, which led to a discussion with her about when to use which kind of dash!
Deletewhen do you use an en-dash? is that a hyphen? (please excuse one handed typing.)
ReplyDeleteAn en dash is wider than a hyphen. If you type a space after a word and then a hyphen and then 'Enter', MS Office Word automatically creates an en dash. If you don't leave a space and type two hyphens then 'Enter', you get an em dash.
DeleteOne basic rule of thumb is that en dashes are used within a sentence, and em dashes at the end of unfinished sentences (but there are always exceptions to this, of course!)
Yep, it's those en and em dashes that get me every time. Even with your explanation, it still confuses me. Every time I submit a mss my editor makes corrections with these, especially with where they go in regards to quotation marks.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I would always put any dashes before end quotation marks. Occasionally they may go after start quotation marks, but I think that's quite rare.
DeleteI have never used any sort of dash in conversation. After reading this I don't think I will either. :(
ReplyDelete