writing

The joy of punctuation

Always learning is a great thing, even when you're learning something new decades after starting something.

Jason Kratz

Jason Kratz

— 2 min read

There has been some discussion around the 'net recently about the venerable em dash and it's apparent overuse by AI systems like ChatGPT. This has left many asking the hilarious question "will I sound too much like AI if I use an em dash now". I'm not too concerned about sounding like ChatGPT but it did make me wonder about the use of the various dash types. Am I using them correctly? But first lets talk a bit about breaking up sentences.

Everyone knows the comma. It's a way to break up a sentence, usually for clarity or one of the "8 rules". By it's use in clarifying sentences it adds natural pauses when a sentence is read. Many know the famous Grandma example:

So please, use your commas. But what happens if you want a bit more drama? Enter the ellipsis.

I love using the ellipsis when I write. You know this one too, the three dots (...). Ellipses add some drama to a sentence, either a dramatic pause or the idea that something is trailing off into silence. I probably overuse them, but I love them. 😘

I mention the ellipsis because it's the punctuation I use the most and is the closest relation to the em dash for drama. The em dash (— think of it as three dashes), the longest of the three dashes, is mostly used to add drama to a sentence but as more of a sudden break whereas the ellipsis is more like a bit of meandering around.

The hyphen (a single dash) and the en dash (two dashes) are for joining things and the type you use depends on the things being joined. Doing the research for this post I learned that I am using hyphens quite often where I should be using en dashes.

Another neat thing I learned in all of this is how to type all of these punctuation types on the keyboard. On a Mac:

  • (-) hyphen has it's own key obviously — the single dash
  • (–) en dash: option-dash
  • (—) em dash: shift-option-dash
  • (…) ellipsis: option-;

I'm sure Windows has equivalents but I don't know them since I don't use a Windows PC.

The Mac also has smart quotes and smart dashes which can be enabled in the system settings. These will automatically convert two or three dashes into en/em dashes.

There are lots of good references to this stuff out on the Internet. The sites I used were:

Now go and make your writing a bit more dramatic, or at the very least more correct 😁

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