Kamal Ghorui
Even as India is poised to launch its first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan, social media has embarked on a very different type of space exploration – the use of horizontal lines of varying length to separate the space between words on the written or printed page, as in this sentence.
Called dashes, these word separators come in two sizes: the Em dash, which is the long dash equivalent to the broad-beamed letter M, and the slightly shorter En dash, equivalent to the printed letter N.
The Em dash is most commonly used in place of the comma, when there are too many of those cluttering up a sentence and giving it an untidy look as though it’s not combed its hair properly.
The Em dash creates a suspended clause in a sentence, a verbal bridge linking two banks of a scripted river: The salad – made of lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots, drizzled with EVOO – was delicious.
Em dashes are also used for dramatic effect or to provide emphasis at the tail end of a sentence: Dracula leapt out from the dark upon his victim – who shrieked in terror. Em dashes can be satisfyingly bloodcurdling when judiciously used.
En dashes are used to connect numbers, places, and dates: This column is about 350-360 words long. The Delhi-Mumbai flight arrived on time, proving that the age of miracles is not over. The Financial Year 2026-2027 is going to be a bummer for the economy.
The En dash is not to be confused with the hyphen – derived from the Greek ‘hupen’ (together) – which looks like the En dash that’s been on a crash diet, and joins words or syllables to create adjectival compound words: Even at his age, Amitabh Bachchan is still a great-looking guy. I’ve got a state-of-the-art smartphone.
Hyphens can be tricky. A man-eating tiger is a very different proposition from a man eating tiger. And a fine-tooth comb is not the same as a fine tooth-comb with which presumably one could comb one’s teeth.
But remember – never, ever insert a hyphen between India and Pakistan.
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