Punctuation: brackets, dashes and hyphens

Punctuation marks are small signs in a text, that show the reader how a sentence is organised. They can show things like: where a sentence begins and ends; which words belong together; or whether a sentence is a question. The most common punctuation marks are: comma, full stop, question mark, and exclamation mark. But punctuation can show many different things: The weather will be great (according to the forecast) so let’s meet at 11! I’ll bring some cakes (your favourite) and soda.

We can use these signs, called brackets (or parentheses) when we want to add something in passing, interject something, without starting a completely new sentence. It can for example be to clarify, or explain something. Parentheses are always used in pairs, and the information inside them is usually something extra. This means that the sentence will make sense even if you skip the part in parentheses. There are more ways to interject something, for example by using commas.

Or these little lines: dashes. There are two types of dash. This one is about the same length as a letter ‘m’, and it’s called an em dash, or long dash. When using em dashes, the interjection often stands out a little more than with parentheses. You could say that they create a stronger interjection than parentheses do.

The weather will be great —according to the forecast —so let’s meet at 11! I’ll bring some cakes —your favourite—and soda. Just as with parentheses, the information between the dashes is something extra, and the sentence should still make sense if you skip that section. Em dashes are generally used in pairs, but if the interjection comes at the end of a sentence, a single em dash may be used: Dad, where’s the knife —wait, I found it. The em dash can also replace other marks, like comma, semi-colon, colon, or full stop.

For example: He is afraid of two things: spiders and snakes. He is afraid of two things —spiders and snakes. When the em dash is used in this way, it replaces the original punctuation mark, and creates a sort of pause that adds strength, emphasis. Em dashes are very common in creative writing, and when writing to someone you know well: more informal texts. It might be good to avoid them in a job application or other more formal texts.

This shorter dash, roughly the length of the letter ‘n’, is called the ‘en dash’, or short dash. This is often used to show a connection between two things. Such as marking spans of time or ranges of numbers, where it means either “to” or “through.” The shop is open 9–5 Answer the questions 1–12 It can also be used to show a connection between two words or expressions. However, it is never used for combining words or expressions into one word. For that, we use a similar punctuation mark: the hyphen.

The hyphen is even shorter than the en dash, and is used for writing words together into one, such as: 12-hour clock or to separate a word into different parts, such as syllables: it’s called ge-la-to or when breaking a word and wrapping it onto the next line: This picnic will be wonder-ful. So... to interject comments in English, you can use parentheses or em dashes (or commas). En dashes are used to show connections between different things. And hyphens tie together expressions into words, or divide words into parts.