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A Blinkin' Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

dashes---causing problems or solving them?

0 I've found much info about dashes on this forum, but I'm still not 100% sure about when and how to use them.02br
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00 If I have sentences like these:02br
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00 Therefore, before John could go to school, he had to prepare his school supplies; only then could he go leave home--making the first day of school a memoriable one.02br
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00 He regarded these people-01del00ones who have come from different backgrounds02del00-as the best of the best.02br
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00 He suffered for ten years--being ridiculed, slandered and rejected, and even deserted by his family.02br
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00 This was the second age--the Age of Kings.02br
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00 The cursed, the punished, or the blessed--with him, there is no such parlance!02br
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00 So it was proved that Veronica didn't to school--if you still think so, aren't you blind?02br
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00 Larry shouldn't climb the mountain--not that he could do so, even if he tried.02br
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00 In any of these cases, could the dash be replaced by a comma, semicolon, or colon? How about if the writing is formal, informal, religious, or secular?0-
  

Top answer

0To me, the dashes are appropriate here. 0-

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19 Answers
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0To me, the dashes are appropriate here. (The first example, however, is the weakest, and not just because of the typos-- 01i01font00go leave home02font02i00 and 01i01font00memoriable02font02i00.)02br
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00I suspect one finds fewer examples of dashes in f
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0 I like the dash. It lets one add emphasis and (dramatic) pauses.02br
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00I think the summary in 01i00Webster's Third New International Dictionary 02i00is excellent:01blockquote
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11b207. THE DASH22b22br
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21b207.022b20 In its function in writing
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0 So, in formal or religious writing, using the same sentence structures as the examples, what punctuation do they use in place of the dash?0-
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0 First, the dash 01b00is02b00 used in formal writing. (I don't know about religious writing.) 02br
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00Second, there is no direct substitute for the dash. One would have to rewrite the sentence. Where the dash is used to emphasize a sentence element, the comma provides less emphasis and sometimes less clarity. Where very different thoughts or se
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0Hi,02br
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00I'd like to add a01i00 caveat02i00 to the discussion. My advice is that if you want to use dashes, it should not be done frequently. Personally, I'd recommend about once a year, or less. 02br
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00If you teach an English class about dashes without discussing that, then every other sentence they write for ever after
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0 01blockquote
01cite10Rvw12cite10First, the dash 11b10is12b10 used in formal writing. (I don't know about religious writing.) 12br
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10I think I may not have an accurate definition of what is covered by 'formal' writing. When it was paired here with 'religious' writing, I thi
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0 I really think the dash is used 01font00--02font00 and appropriately used 01font00--02font00 quite often. It allows one more expressivity and versatility 01font00--02font00 like dancing the tango argentino instead of just the waltz.02br
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0My writing handbook says this: "where colons provide formal introductions, dashes introduce unanticipated guests".02br
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00Also: "A dash is a bold piece of punctuation. When used alone, a dash attaches one idea to another with more vigour than a comma would. When used in pairs, dashes highlight words or phrases by isolating them from the rest of a sentence. Think of das
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0 00i don't have any writing guides handy, but i think that clive makes an important point. like any piece of punctuation, dashes serve their purpose. however, the added emphasis of a dash can be dangerous; writers need to understand that a dash tends to disrupt sentence flow. like an exclamation mark, the dash draws attention to itself. just my opinion...02br
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00-an
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1b00Forgive me, but what do you mean by a “dash.” All the examples here show two hyphens. These are not dashes.02b02br
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00There are three types of dashes, namely Hyphens, Em Dashes and En Dashes 02br
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00The hyphen is the shortest of the three and is used most commonly to combine words (compounds such as "well-being" and "advanced-lev
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