University of Louisville

Join the Dash –Dash—Revolution!!!

The Dash is a very exciting piece of punctuation that isn’t used as much as it should be.  Have you ever used a Dash in something you’ve written?  Even though the Dash does some jobs that are covered by other pieces of punctuation—the comma, the colon, or the parenthesis—it can really help to add a little visual spice to whatever you are writing.  Here is what I mean:

1) The Dash is most often made by typing two hyphens - - side by

     side –

            Don’t get the hyphen and the Dash confused!  They do different jobs. 

                Think of the Dash as a bigger line connecting bigger ideas.

To type a Dash, type the first word, two hyphen marks and then the next word with no spaces in between.  It should look like this - - when you are typing, and this—when you are done.

2) The Dash can be used to set off important, otherwise

     parenthetical material.

Setting aside phrases that are not directly related to the main idea of

the sentence is a job normally done by parentheses ( ), but sometimes

these phrases can be very important ideas.  Point at them with the Dash

to give them a special emphasis.

A phrase looks cut off from the sentence when in parentheses.

          My mother always told me (and she was always saying strange things like

         this) to rinse behind my ears while using dental floss.

You can emphasize the phrase with the Dash.

          My mother always told me—and she was always saying strange things like

          this—to rinse behind my ears while using dental floss.

3) The Dash can be used to set off an appositive phrase that

     contains commas.

An appositive is a phrase that explains the word or words that come

before it. Usually it is set off with commas, but if the appositive phrase

has commas of its own the Dash can make thing a bit clearer.

You could say,

          The monsters, who have been living under my bed, in my closet, and in my

          sister’s room since I was four, ate my homework!

But isn’t it better to point those monsters out with the Dash?

          The monsters—who have been living under my bed, in my closet, and in my

          sister’s room since I was four—ate my homework!

4) The Dash can be used to start off a list of items.

Instead of a colon at the beginning of a list, use the Dash to point the items

out.  Notice that the hyphens in the second example connect words, while

the dash connects ideas.

        When preparing to write poetry, I always get out my favorite pens—Inkwell,

         Rollerball, Blacky, and The Duke.

         Richard Dean Anderson once built a fully-functional forty-foot submarine

         out of house-hold items—a banana, two empty toilet paper rolls, seven

         paperclips, and a ukulele.

5) The Dash can be used to set off a change in tone within a

     sentence.

This is the one job that can really only be done with the Dash.  Even so, it is a jog

that is hard to define.  When a sentence has a dramatic shift in tone, the Dash will point this out.  You may get a better feel for what this “shift in tone” means by looking at the examples.

        Last weekend we both went camping, fishing, hiking, skeet shooting, bungee

        jumping, and disco hopping—I love my Dad!

       The years from 1990 to 2000 constituted the greatest decade in music

       history. It was the decade of Hootie and the Blowfish—I rest my case.

        I told her I could give her the moon and the stars, right then and there, if she

       would only say she loved me too—she asked if I had kept the receipts.