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Dash
Sometimes you have some information which needs to be added to a sentence, and that little bit of information is direly – no, deathly – important to that sentence; if it’s a matter of life or death (figuratively, of course), you’ll want the reader to pay attention to that information. Or perhaps you’ve been ranting on about one thing and then suddenly change tack and rant on about something different. In either case, this is where you want to use a dash. It’s a strong punctuation mark, and it can be compared to the softer parentheses (just as a period compares to a semicolon).You can use a dash whenever you need to wake your reader up and let them know that the focus is changing.
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Two words brought together as a compound may be written separately, written as one word, or connected by hyphens. For example, three modern dictionaries all have the same listings for the following compounds:
hair stylist
hairsplitter
hair-raiser
Another modern dictionary, however, lists hairstylist, not hair stylist. Compounding is obviously in a state of flux, and authorities do not always agree in all cases, but the uses of the hyphen offered here are generally agreed upon.hairsplitter
hair-raiser
- Use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before a noun: a one-way streetHowever, when compound modifiers come after a noun, they are not hyphenated:
chocolate-covered peanuts
well-known authorThe peanuts were chocolate covered.
The author was well known. - Use a hyphen with compound numbers: forty-six
sixty-three
Our much-loved teacher was sixty-three years old. - Use a hyphen to avoid confusion or an awkward combination of letters: re-sign a petition (vs. resign from a job)
semi-independent (but semiconscious)
shell-like (but childlike) - Use a hyphen with the prefixes ex- (meaning former), self-, all-; with the suffix -elect; between a prefix and a capitalized word; and with figures or letters: ex-husband
self-assured
mid-September
all-inclusive
mayor-elect
anti-American
T-shirt
pre-Civil War
mid-1980s - Use a hyphen to divide words at the end of a line if necessary, and make the break only between syllables: pref-er-ence
sell-ing
in-di-vid-u-al-ist - For line breaks, divide already-hyphenated words only at the hyphen: mass-
produced
self-
conscious - For line breaks in words ending in -ing, if a single final consonant in the root word is doubled before the suffix, hyphenate between the consonants; otherwise, hyphenate at the suffix itself: plan-ning
run-ning
driv-ing
call-ing - Never put the first or last letter of a word at the end or beginning of a line, and don't put two-letter suffixes at the beginning of a new line: lovely (Do not separate in a way which leaves ly beginning a new line.)
eval-u-ate (Separate only on either side of the u; do not leave the initial e- at the end of a line.)
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http://www.grammar-quizzes.com/punc-dashes.html
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How to hyphenate
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