I admit complete confusion over the proper use of the en dash, em dash, and hyphen. Back in the Stone Age, our journalism professors didn’t touch on this. After all, that was almost 50 years ago, and an IBM Selectric typewriter was my only option for creating news copy.

In my mind, every dash I see is a hyphen. But, as several colleagues, including our graphic designer have told me, that’s simply not true. There’s actually an assortment of horizontal marks to choose from, including the hyphen, soft hyphen, minus sign, angled dash, swung dash, en dash, figure dash, em dash, two-em dash, three-em dash, and horizontal rule. Confused yet? Me too!

To make sense of the differences between a hyphen, an en dash, and an em dash, I had to do some research. Here’s what I found. Hyphens (-) are the shortest. En dashes (–) are in the medium range, and em dashes (—) are the longest. Length aside, the types of dashes perform different duties, and they are not interchangeable.

The use of hyphens began with Johannes Gutenberg who used them to indicate when a word at the end of a line continued onto the next line. Hyphens connect the parts of a compound word, such as part-time, high-strung, and one of my favorites, chocolate-covered. Hyphens highlight the relationship between the parts (words) involved and create a new meaning. HOWEVER, there are exceptions, like when you use hyphens in a story to spell out a word like d-o-g. Or to indicate a stutter, such as b-b-but.

The AP Style Guide doesn’t use en dashes; rendering those of us with traditional journalism training “en-less.” However, within generally accepted punctuation rules, en dashes are typically used to show a range of quantifiable items, such as pages, dates, sports scores or numbers. The en dash replaces the words “from” or “between” in a sentence. You can also use an en dash instead of using “versus,” such as the Detroit-Cincinnati game or the Nixon-Kennedy debate.

Just as the en dash was named such because it is supposedly the width of the letter “n”, the em dash is so named because it is supposed to be the width of the letter “m.” Em dashes can add emphasis to a sentence, call attention to an idea, or even replace parentheses. Here’s an example. The veterinarian—holding a squeaky toy—managed to distract the dog. You can also use em dashes to indicate a break in the conversation, as in, “I want to apologize—“she said as the boy turned and walked away. Em dashes can be used without spaces on either side. The AP includes the spaces, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), followed by more literary and professional types, does not.

Many of us who learned (labored) to write in journalism classes using a typewriter were taught to use two hyphens to make a dash, underline text to suggest use of italics and insert double spaces after periods to indicate the end of a sentence. Microsoft Word, the most common word processing program in the world, uses combinations of hyphens and spaces to reflect these dashes. If you type two dashes between two words they become an em dash--, however if you put a space on either side of a hyphen, -- it becomes an en dash. Microsoft Word also provides other dash options (which made my eyes glaze over) including soft hyphens, non-breaking hyphens, minus signs, angled dashes, and swung dashes. The Week Magazine offers more information on those dashes. Another great source is wordgenius.com.

If you’re wondering how to create these dashes on your keyboard, try these hacks from WritePublishSell.com and Audrey Hodge of Hodgepodge Solutions. I tried them and they work.

• To type an en dash on a PC, press and hold the ALT key and type 0150. On a Mac, press the Option key together with the Minus key
• To type an em dash on a PC, press and hold the ALT key and type 0151. On a Mac, press the Shift key together with the Option key and then press the Minus key.

However you decide to punctuate, do it with gusto and become Dashing!!