Help needed to understand the dash -- use and rules?

Question

i what a hyphen is but people use this dash instead of comma or fullstop. why and how it can be used?

should say: i know what i hyphen is..............

Answer 1

The dash may be used:
(a) after or before a list which elaborates:
Everything is lost -- money, health, friends, reputation.
(b) to indicate a significant pause, made to emphasise what follows:
The two rivals met at last -- in prison.
(c) in pairs to indicate a parenthesis:
He described -- and he was a long time about it -- what had happened.
(d) to indicate the repetition or explanation of a word or a notion:
I wondered at his errors -- errors which could easily have been avoided.

Answer 2

The hyphen can be used for a variety of reasons. A hyphen can join two words, split an unusually large one; or, in the case of the sentence, denote a break in thought or flow.

I will address the hyphenation of words, as well as sentences.

Rules vary wildly on the use of word hyphenization (or is it word-hyphenization!?) I personally like hyphenating for added emphasis ease of reading. Too many unusual repetetive vowels can appear grotesque, like the two e's in "reenter." I prefer to type "re-enter."

Also, hyphenating words can often eliminate confusion. A product called an underbed storage unit, may be perpelxing. Underbed? What does that mean? The storage unit has not been "derbed," therefore it is UNderbed? What is this strange verb, "derb?"

Of course, the originally intended meaning is "under-bed," a storage unit that cane be placed under one's bed. This is just an example illustrating how a simple hyphen can make reading and comprehension much easier.

I don't know if you're a student hoping not to have points deducted from a paper, or just someone who wants to "do it right," but personally, I trust my own instinct on that front, and often ignore spellcheck (which some might call spell-check. Ha, ha.)

NOW, THEN!!!! As far as the double hyphen in a sentence, I can absolutely help you there :)

Here's the deal, the sentence should continue smoothly after the LAST hyphen from the exact point BEFORE the first one.

An example: Republicans--whom I personally loathe--can be really nice people.

"whom I personally loathe" is a break in the original thought, but it's OK, since if you were to remove it, the sentence would still make sense ("Republicans can be really nice people")

Improper hyphenation would be:
Republicans--can be really nice people--but I loathe them.

Obviously, in this case, without "can be really nice people," the sentence "Republicans but I loathe them" makes no sense.

That's all I know. Hope it helped a wee bit. :)

Answer 3

a hyphen is the short dash to separate words.
there is also the En dash and Em dash

The en dash is as wide as an upper case N. It is generally used to separate numbers or words (ex. 2:00 -- 4:00 pm)

The em dash is drawn as long as an upper case M and is basically like a set of parentheses to separate out a statement. There should always be---if I recall correctly---both an opening and a closing M dash.