Dash Between Words Usage

Dashes, or hyphens, are an important part of your sentence structure. While the many uses of dashes are varied, they are also often misused. The following tips will help you decide when and how to utilize this powerful grammatical tool.

Adjusting Line Endings

There are times that a particularly long word will fall at the end of a line of text and get thrown to the next line, creating an odd-looking gap in the text. The rules for hyphenating these words are pretty complex, but placing the break between syllables or after prefixes is a good practice. Refer to a dictionary if you are unsure.

Compound Words

Again, there are rules for which compound words truly require the use of a hyphen, and a dictionary is a good guide. To keep it simple, when the compound word is a verb, one should in most cases use a hyphen. (For example, to fact-check an article).

Compound adjectives placed before the subject should contain a dash; those placed after the noun do not need one. (For example: a long-lost brother; she is well known for her writing.)

Hyphens in compound nouns are almost optional today (for example: babysitter), as long as you are consistent within a piece of work.

Suspended Compouds

Hyphens can also be used as a placeholder in a string of similar compounds. For example:

First-, second-, and third-year students should attend the seminar.

Numbers

Dashes should be used when writing the numbers twenty-one through ninety-nine. One should also hyphenate fractions, such as two-thirds.

References

• Oxford Dictionaries