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Dashes and hyphens

Dashes and hyphens aren't interchangeable. Keep the following in mind:

  • Em dashes (—) set off or emphasize parenthetical phrases.

  • En dashes (–) are used in number and date ranges, in negative numbers, and as a minus sign. 

  • Hyphens (-) are used to join words and connect prefixes to stem words. Don't use two hyphens in place of an em dash.

Don't use spaces before or after em and en dashes.