Dash It All

by Dan Brubaker Horst

I learned the difference between a dash and a semicolon—and when to use them—from my English teacher, Suzanne Ehst, back in 1998, my junior year of high school.1 I learned the difference between an en-dash and an em-dash from Matthew Butterick in 2013.2

I use dashes in my writing to adjust the cadence so it feels more like spoken word or transcribed thought.3 I type them without thinking on my preferred computing platforms (macOS: option + shift + -; iOS: long-press - then select the longest dash). And, if I have to, I copy them from my list of useful punctuation.

Some Angry Internet People claim that any text written with em dashes must have been composed by an LLM because no one uses dashes in their writing. I disagree. I’ve used the right punctuation in my prose—dashes included—for decades. I’ll keep using them appropriately, even if I risk getting falsely accused of passing off GenAI slop as my own work.

  1. A clause appended to a sentence with a semicolon should be a complete sentence on its own. A sentence fragment must be appended to a sentence with an em-dash. Sue explained it like this: a semicolon is an RV pulling a car; a dash is an RV pulling a trailer. ↩︎

  2. An en dash “–“ is used to in a range e.g. 10–20. An em dash “—“ is the right punctuation for appending a clause to a sentence or for a parenthetical statement. ↩︎

  3. I was once chided for using em dashes too often in scientific writing in 2004—the only editorial feedback I remember from college. ↩︎