Styling Culture (8)—Dashes and Hyphens

Click here to read the introduction to the Round and Square series "Styling Culture." 
In the next few weeks I will be posting the text for a "volume" that I have been distributing for the last fifteen years. Back in 1997, I handed out a two-page set of instructions that I called "Rob's Style Sheet." I quickly learned that it could be a useful teaching tool, allowing me to describe the practicalities and esoterica surrounding grammar and style in the higher education classroom (and beyond). It also became apparent that it could be a useful tool for writing comments on student papers. Instead of trying to explain in the margins of a paper that s/he was using "number" in problematic ways (we'll get to that), I could write "#19," and have her know exactly what I mean. The most impressive students learned the material very well, and some of them have already gone on to be successful writers—in and beyond academia and the corporate world.

[a] Dashes and Hyphens RF

I will be posting the manuscript that I have provisionally entitled Styling Culture on Round and Square during August and September. As you will quickly see, it is meant to be a grammar book for the anthropologist of American English. It has its prescriptive elements, to be sure (this is all explained in the introduction to the series), but it is meant far more powerfully to be a genuinely useful guide to the culture wars surrounding grammar and usage. In particular, I have great venom for both the annoying critics who always seem to be correcting people and (this is important) for the "good guys" who tell you that it doesn't matter. They're both wrong, and they will hurt you if you listen to them. I'm here to help you, so read on.

8. Dashes and Hyphens

a. Use a hyphen (-) to form compound adjectives or compound nouns, to create some prefixes, and to prevent the misreading of awkward constructions. For reasons of clarity and style, it is important not to overuse hyphens.
           Examples:

           scholar-official

           daughter-in-law

           a re-covered book

           step-by-step

           all-inclusive

           short-lived (learn to pronounce this correctly and wow your friends)

           warrior-monk

          News-Free Press

b. For dashes, choose one of the following (and be consistent). I far prefer the latter (#2, below), but the only thing that everyone (at least those who care about these matters) dislikes is the use of a hyphen (-) for a dash. It goes beyond aesthetics; it confuses an otherwise natural and fluid cosmic pattern. Don’t do it—ever!

(1) Use double dashes (--) with no spaces between words, e.g:

           Example:

This helps to account for the dissonance found in the novel--the combined effect of the narrative proper, the poems, and moral statements in the text.

(2) Use a long dash (—) with no space between words. Create this in Microsoft Word by pressing “shift/option” and dash at the same time, e.g:

           Example:

This helps to account for the dissonance found in the novel—the combined effect of the narrative

proper, the poems, and moral statements in the text.

c. AutoCorrect^® will, if properly set, do this for you if you type in the two dashes noted in (1), above. It will make two hyphens automatically into a refined dash, and will insulate you from professorial criticism, even if you have not had time to think clearly about the points above.

***  ***

[b] Lightly(-)salted RF

This is not earth(-)shaking stuff, but if you read many hundreds of chaotic pages a year, little things like hyphens and dashes start to matter. If you have never given much thought to matters such as this, it might seem as though your professor (or editor) just needs to get out more and ingest a chill(-)pill or two. Here again, though, I am trying to teach my students the expectations of the American publishing industry. Funny thing, that publishing industry. Hyphens and dashes seem to matter a great deal to people at all levels of it (from typesetters in an earlier era to editors with grease(-)pencils.

Dashes and hyphens did not get lost in the shuffle when big ink(-)blotched irons slammed into newsprint (not news-print) to create, say, Baltimore's evening newspaper in the, say, the 1940s. The Baltimore Evening Sun (not Evening-Sun) cranked away until it went the way of just about every other evening newspaper (not news-paper) in the United States (not United-States). 

Hyphens and dashes are still here, and they still matter. Just look at the two paragraphs above and think it over. Develop an ear and an eye for them, and start to notice how much useful work they can do, as well as how much annoyance they can cause if left to the winds of chance.

NEXT

Titles, Foreign Terms, and Points of Emphasis

Learn to use italics. Your underline key is next to worthless, and I urge you to stop using it for anything!