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This question is Not Answered
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A Blinkin'
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190845
Mon, 30 Jan 06 05:51 PM
I've found much info about dashes on this forum, but I'm still not 100% sure about when and how to use them.
If I have sentences like these:
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.
He regarded these people--ones who have come from different backgrounds--as the best of the best.
He suffered for ten years--being ridiculed, slandered and rejected, and even deserted by his family.
This was the second age--the Age of Kings.
The cursed, the punished, or the blessed--with him, there is no such parlance!
So it was proved that Veronica didn't to school--if you still think so, aren't you blind?
Larry shouldn't climb the mountain--not that he could do so, even if he tried.
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?
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davkett
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190890
Mon, 30 Jan 06 08:41 PM
To me, the dashes are appropriate here. (The first example, however, is the weakest, and not just because of the typos-- go leave home and memoriable.)
I suspect one finds fewer examples of dashes in formal or religious writing, since the usual effect is a pause and a turn in the thought, or a momentary digression in the stream of the main sentence.
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rvw
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190912
Mon, 30 Jan 06 10:37 PM
I like the dash. It lets one add emphasis and (dramatic) pauses. I think the summary in Webster's Third New International Dictionary is excellent: 7. THE DASH
7.0 In its function in writing and in the speech intonation to which it corresponds, the dash is similar to the comma and the colon, and a pair of dashes is similar to parentheses.
7.1 A dash usually marks an abrupt change or suspension in the thought or structure of a snetence <If you will listen I will explain -- but perhaps another time will be better.> <The mountain we climbed is higher than -- oh, never mind how high it is.> <He was -- how shall I put it -- a controversial figure to say the least.> <"Yes, but I -- er -- I'll have to --" and he stopped hopelessly.>
7.2 A dash often makes parenthetic, appositional, or explanatory matter stand out clearly or emphatically <Three of the country's most important products -- oil, steel, and wheat -- are produced in greater quantities than ever before.> <Two of our group -- Eddie and John -- came walking down the street.> <He is willing to discuss all problems -- those he has solved and those for which there is no immediate solution.>
7.3 A dash often occurs before a summarizing statement or clause <Oil, steel, and wheat -- these are the sinews of industrialization.>
7.4 A dash sometimes sets off appositional or parenthetic matter that is introduced by such expressions as namely, for example, that is <Sports develop two valuable traits -- namely, self-control and the ability to make quick decisions.>
7.5 A dash often mechanically precedes the name of an author or source at the end of a quoted passage <There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune --William Shakespeare> <"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" --Genesis 1:1
7.6 A long dash often functions as a notational device to indicate the omission of a word or of letters in a word <yelling ---- loudly> <Mr. M---- of New York> <go to the d----l>
7.7 A short dash -- slightly larger than a hyphen -- often serves as an arbitrary equivalent of to and including between numbers or dates and in compounding capitalized two-word names with the hyphen <pages 40-98> <the decade 1951-60> <the New York-Lisbon plane>
Therefore, before John could go to school, he had to prepare his school
supplies; only then could he leave home--making the first day of
school a memorable one. A dash is needed. Making has no referent; there is a shift in sentence structure.
He regarded these people--ones who have come from different backgrounds--as the best of the best. Commas could be used around the appositional clause, but it would stand out less.
He suffered for ten years--being ridiculed, slandered and rejected, and even deserted by his family. A comma could be used, but again, I think the effect would be lessened.
This was the second age--the Age of Kings. A comma or (less likely) a colon could be used.
The cursed, the punished, or the blessed--with him, there is no such parlance! A dash is needed because of the abrupt change in thought and sentence structure.
So it was proved that Veronica didn't to school--if you still think so, aren't you blind? As above.
Larry shouldn't climb the mountain--not that he could do so, even if he tried. As above, though a comma might work.
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A Blinkin'
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190929
Tue, 31 Jan 06 12:42 AM
So, in formal or religious writing, using the same sentence structures
as the examples, what punctuation do they use in place of the dash?
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rvw
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191053
Tue, 31 Jan 06 01:23 PM
First, the dash is used in formal writing. (I don't know about religious writing.) Second, 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 sentence structures are divided by a dash, there is no other punctuation that is even close. If you are trying to decide whether or not to use the dash in your writing, I recommend that you do use it. To get a better feel for when to use it, see the article from Webster's in my earlier post and look for the dash in the books and periodicals you read.
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Clive
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191062
Tue, 31 Jan 06 02:22 PM
Hi,
I'd like to add a caveat 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.
If you teach an English class about dashes without discussing that, then every other sentence they write for ever after will be full of dashes. This can seem very foolish, and even very annoying!
Best wishes, Clive
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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
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davkett
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191069
Tue, 31 Jan 06 02:52 PM
 Rvw wrote: | First, the dash is used in formal writing. (I don't know about religious writing.)
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I think I may not have an accurate definition of what is covered by 'formal' writing. When it was paired here with 'religious' writing, I think my presumption about 'formal writing' was 'philosophical', 'scientific', 'technical', 'legal' contexts-- where I further presumed one would only rarely see the use of dashes.
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rvw
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191243
Wed, 01 Feb 06 12:22 AM
I really think the dash is used -- and appropriately used -- quite often. It allows one more expressivity and versatility -- like dancing the tango argentino instead of just the waltz. I can easily imagine it being overused, so one needs to get a feel for its appropriate uses. I looked through some books that I happened to have out. There are dashes all over the place -- in technical and philosophical books as well as in fiction. Here are some examples. -Many works have been written on expression, but a greater number on physiognomy -- that is, on the recognition of a character through the study of the permanent form of the features. --The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, by Charles Darwin, 1872
-When pure mathematics is organized as a deductive system -- i.e. as the set of all those propositions that can be deduced from an assigned set of premises -- it becomes obvious that, if we are to believe in the truth of pure mathematics, it cannot be solely because we believe in the truth of the set of premises. --"Logical Atomism", by Bertrand Russell, 1924
-In this section we describe the most important class of formal languages L1 -- the first order languages -- and give two concrete representatives of this class: the Zermelo-Fraenkel language of set theory L1Set, and the Peano language of arithmetic L1Ar. --A Course in Mathematical Logic, by Yu. I. Manin, 1977
-"...There was a bit of equipment damage -- the insurance company's not going to be as ecstatic as the last time -- but our Life Bonus is safe and warm." --Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold, 1996
-Consciousness -- phenomenal experience -- seems in many ways too good to be true. --"A Self Worth Having (A Talk with Nicholas Humphrey)", 2003
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julielai
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191316
Wed, 01 Feb 06 05:54 AM
My writing handbook says this: "where colons provide formal introductions, dashes introduce unanticipated guests".
Also: "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 dashes as sparks of energy in a sentence, arcing from idea to idea."
e.g. Teachers can be wrong -- even in an elite school like this one.
The Daily County News--our noisy and aggressive local paper--trumpeted news of this incident in three-inch headlines.
Source: The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers
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