Question if I use em dash ― in a book?

Johnny Weissmuller, Jr. @Johnny Weissmuller, Jr.

May 2021 4 117 Report

Question if I use em dash ― in a book?

First of all I will say that my keyboard can't reproduce the ― I copied it from Internet.

Never mind, let's go to the question:

Every time I check a book in the library, I see that the authors use the dash (em dash or long dash) as ― and no as -- (two en dashes)

My question is:

If I use the ― therefore I NEVER EVER use the short -- in the same book, right?

So the ― will dominate ALWAYS?

Arts & Humanities / Books & Authors

Anonymous

Verified answer

The two are used differently.

The en dash is used in between ranges, such as "children aged 3–5". It can also be used in connections, such as referring to the Boston–New York train line.

The em dash is used in interpolations such as "he had been given the comprehensive sixty-four-crayon Crayola box—including the gold and silver crayons—and would not let me look closely at the box" and also in sentences which are cut off through an interruption by another character.

The dash on your keyboard is a "figure dash", and is neither an en nor an em dash. "--" is not a proper way of writing the em dash. In some fonts, the figure dash might be of equal length to an en dash.