My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

D
ASH IT ALL
! (
OR
, D
ASHES
)
A dash (–) is a short horizontal line that may be used alone, or as a pair in place
of  brackets.  It  introduces  an  aside,  an  interruption  or  an  additional  piece  of
information,  indicates  a  sudden  change  of  emotion  or  thought,  or  shows  that
words have been omitted at the end of a sentence that has been broken off.
*41
He had said that he would marry her when he got his next promotion – and she,
poor girl, believed him.
She – poor girl – believed him.
After hours of careful preparation the experiment actually worked – eureka!
They  want  that  contract  –  which  means  they  get  that  contract  –  by  the  end  of
today .
‘He is an excellent employee, but –’
A dash can also indicate that we are carrying on where we left off: ‘– as I was
telling you, I wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch with her.’
Nowadays,  dashes  are  riding  roughshod  over  the  poor  old  semi-colon  (I  have
tickets  for  Wimbledon  tomorrow  –  I  bet  it  rains  ),  and  this  is  becoming  more
acceptable, especially in informal writing.
British  English  usually  uses  an  en-dash  (–)  with  a  space  on  either  side  of  it;
Americans prefer the longer em-dash(—) and no spaces.
A  dash  also  sometimes  takes  the  place  of  letters  in  order  to  ‘disguise’  swear
words  (does  this  really  fool  anybody?).  In  this  case,  the  closed-up  em-dash,  or
something longer, is usual on both sides of the Atlantic:
That man who hit me was a right b——d.
What’s the f——g point of that?

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