dash

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Anonymous

#502008 Thu, 17 Apr 08 11:01 PM

Hi,

Please tell me how these uses of a dash is justified. Normally, it seems a dash is used to pull an element to the main clause but in this case, the part being pulled is not clear. I think you can use this pattern:

Courage and compassion -- the two qualities that mark a good person are the ones that most people are born with.

But these?

For Hegacy (might have typed this name wrong) to go to court and to ask such a request -- it never happened in the last 1400 years.

Whoever does the cleaning -- please let me know so that I could thank him.

Anonymous

Clauses

Mister Micawber

#502032 Fri, 18 Apr 08 12:54 AM

.
Justified? Well, all I can say is that they work OK in your examples. M-dashes are a relatively informal but increasingly popular-- and rather vague-- connective punctuation. They are used "to denote a sudden break in thought that causes an abrupt change in sentence structure." [Chicago Manual of Style]. They usually replace parentheses, but can also subsitute-- in some cases-- for colons and commas.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (19,551)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.' . 'A fabis abstineto' - Anon

Colons, Commas, Punctuation, Sentence structures

Clive

#502056 Fri, 18 Apr 08 02:12 AM

Hi,

Have a look at this link.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/category?blogid=5&cat=1066

You'll find an item called Excessive use of the dash. In it, the author offers this opinion about dashes.

The dash means, "F*** it, let the reader figure it out. I'm too lazy to come up with the correct punctuations."

Very generally speaking, I'm inclined to agree with this view.

Best wishes, Clive Smile

Clive

Joined on Thu, Oct 28 2004

Canada

Veteran Member (19,491)

El tango argentino es un pensamiento triste que se puede bailar (The tango argentino is a sad thought which can be danced) Enrique Santos Discépolo

Grammar Geek

#502059 Fri, 18 Apr 08 02:23 AM

Clive

The dash means, "F*** it, let the reader figure it out. I'm too lazy to come up with the correct punctuations."

Very generally speaking, I'm inclined to agree with this view.