En rules, em dashes

Question

Can anyone tell me what correct use of em dashes? My books all state something different. Hart's rules says use the em dash without spaces when indicating a subclause in a sentence but my more modern grammar books use en rules with spaces either side of the en rule. Would anyone be able to tell me which is correct? Thanks very much.

Guest · Accepted Answer

I've never heard of using an en dash for breaks in thought or as emphasized parentheticals. En dashes indicate through (1975-~~1979) or, according to the Chicago Manual of Style, indicate compound modifiers(a White House~~-backed proposal). The em dash does not have a space before it unless it indicates a break in thought. What the --- ?

Guest · Answer

Correction, you never use spaces before em dashes, although WWW postings may display them with the space.

MountainHiker · Answer

Hey Sarah,

Have a look at [url="http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/091502.htm"]this article on hyphens and dashes[/url]. Athough the article doesn't tell you how to space the hyphens and dashes, you can see they way the writer wrote the article.

I tend to use no spaces. But I am not the authority. Lol.

I have seen spaces and no spaces. I think it depends upon the style that the publication is using. I tend to use NO spaces. Here is an [url="http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3082696"]article in the well regarded Economist[/url]. Again, no spaces.

If you look at [url="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/arts/design/10NEWT.html?pagewanted=print&position="]this article from the NY Times[/url], it seems that there might be a "small" space. The dash doesn't touch the letters on either side of it, but the space is very small, too small for most letters to fit in.

Here is [url="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/fashion/10DRES.html?pagewanted=print&position="]another article[/url] from the NY Times. Same thing.

Here is a [url="http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/080904"]mini-article from Vogue magazine[/url]. Again, you see that no spaces are present. The dashes appear to touch the letters.

Here is an [url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55339-2004Aug10?language=printer"]article in the Washington Post[/url] newspaper. (Access to The Washington Post is free, but you have to register.) You can see that they use a double hyphen and leave a space at end -- a style which I personally don't care for. Lol, I just mimicked their style.

So you see, there are no hard and fast rules. I think it is important to be consistent.

I like to use a solid em dash (when em dashes are called for) with no spaces such that the dash touches the letters on both sides. But as we have seen, some publications agree, others don't.

My advice is to find a style that you like and then be consistent with that style.

A note to others: The referenced articles are likely to be visible for less than a week. So if you read this message several days later, the links might be dead.

I hope this message was helpful.

MountainHiker

Poetation · Answer

Thank you-~~the previous poster~~-for taking the time to provide links to several examples(h)(though not sure if I used em dashes correctly there).

I would also like to add that some word processing software might glitch when hyphens, en dashes and em dashes are used properly. In addition-~~I would imagine~~-there are plenty of "old-school" journalists who may use "--"(with spaces) instead of the proper en dash. But this is merely conjecture.

En rules, em dashes

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