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Anonymous Posted 14 years ago
Grammar

Combined dashes

I know that em-dashes, historically, have been combined with commas (,--) to offset appositives, but I've also seen them combined with semi-colons (;--) and I'm unclear about exactly what grammatical function this was meant to serve. Can anyone offer help on this?
  

Top answer

Hi, The idea of using semi-colons sounds very wrong to me. The us of commas sounds pretty odd, too. Can you post some sample sentences for comment?

— Clive

  • Hi, The idea of using semi-colons sounds very wrong to me.
  • The us of commas sounds pretty odd, too.
  • Can you post some sample sentences for comment?
  • Clive
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3 Answers
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Hi,

The idea of using semi-colons sounds very wrong to me. The us of commas sounds pretty odd, too.

Can you post some sample sentences for comment?

Clive
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I have seen it used most commonly in 18th-Century writing and writing that emulates the 18th Century style (such as Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon), but I recently saw some examples of F. Scott Fitzgerald's prose in which he uses the same sort of punctuation himself. It was either in The Great Gatsby or in the new piece that he has in the New Yorker (Thank You For the Light). I don't have either t
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Anonymous I've also seen them combined with semi-colons (;--) and I'm unclear about exactly what grammatical function this was meant to serve.
I have seen it too in older texts (again, none at hand, sorry). I read it just as I would read a modern m-dash alone, and that seems to make sense.
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