An en dash is a punctuation mark used to replace “to” between a range of numbers, hyphens in hyphenated words, and indicate a relationship between two things. It is usually the same width as a capital “N” and can vary with font. Its most common uses are within a range of numbers and to indicate a relationship. The trailing dash usually borders the numbers or letters in between, and spaces are usually used for ease of reading. The em dash is often used instead of the en dash in editor styles.
A dash (–) is a punctuation mark that is sometimes used to highlight a sentence, like this one, that occurs in or at the end of a sentence. A dash is so named because it is usually the same width as a capital “N,” wider than a dash but narrower than an em dash (-). It has a wide variety of uses, including replacing the word “to” between a range of numbers, replacing a standard hyphen in hyphenated words, and indicating a relationship between two things.
Originally, the width of this mark was defined as half the width of a dash, another punctuation mark. The specific width of a dash sometimes varies with the font used because it is usually equivalent to the width of the capital “N” in a given font. Also, some programs create dashes that are equivalent to the lowercase “n” in some characters. An en dash may also be called an “n-line”, “n-line”, “n-rule”, or “dice”.
Traditionally, the most common uses of en dashes are within a range of numbers or to indicate a relationship between two words. When used within a range of numbers, the trailing dash can separate dates, times, monetary amounts, years, page numbers, or any other number range that has both a finite beginning and a finite end. For example, a dash could be used in place of a dash when stating that a toy is recommended for children between the ages of 4 and 7.
When used to indicate a relationship, this mark can denote collaboration or contrast. For example, a partnership between a university and the city in which it is located could be demonstrated by stating that “Western University-Anytown’s clean air campaign has been successful.” An example of a contrast would be when a newspaper reports that a team won a game by a score of 7-3, meaning the winning team scored seven points and the losing team scored three. In all of these situations, the trailing dash usually borders the numbers or letters in between, meaning there are no spaces on either side of the sign.
In cases where a dash is used instead of commas to emphasize a sentence within a sentence, like now, spaces shouldn’t technically be present, but they are usually used for ease of reading. It is important to note that many editor styles use the em dash instead of the trailing dash when activating sentences. At one time, the dash, dash, and dash all had specific uses. Today, however, they are generally used interchangeably.
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