One mark of novice legal writing is the haphazard use of three related punctuation marks: the hyphen,
the en dash, and the em dash.
An en dash is larger than a hyphen and about one - half the size of an em dash.
The ones lawyers use the most are the em dash,
en dash, §, ¶, and ©.
Finally, there is the issue of the dash, both
en dash and em dash.
Use
the en dash for a sequence, as in 42 — 81 (this time without the space).
The en dash -LRB----RRB- is just one of two common dashes.
The En dash, typically half the length of an Em dash, is used to denote duration, as in 8:00 — 5:00.
With Batman MP David Feeney's resignation on Friday and Longman MP Susan Lamb's all but inevitable exit by Parliament's rise on Thursday, his period looks more like a semi-colon or
an en dash.
Plus, I really like having access to special characters like
en dashes and em dashes without memorizing Alt codes.
If you believe that lawyers should aspire to be professional writers, take some time to learn the basic rules of punctuation and grammar, including the rules above for hyphens,
en dashes, and em dashes.
Replace all non-ASCII characters (e.g., bullets, em dashes,
en dashes, or (in MS Word) smart quotes) with ASCII characters such as asterisks, hyphens, and standard quotation marks.
Not exact matches
People in the fashion world are currently
en masse using the mix of raw coffee beans with a spoonful of unsalted grass - fed butter and a
dash of MCT (exclusive coconut oil).
A risqué relationship story and a witty take on creative pursuits, the film concerns a commercial artist (Hopkins) unable — or unwilling — to choose between the equally
dashing painter (Cooper) and playwright (March) she meets on a train
en route to the City of Light.
En route, Anna makes the acquaintance of Countess Vronsky (Olivia Williams), who is then met at the train station by her son, the
dashing cavalry officer Vronsky (Aaron Taylor - Johnson).
Or, if you prefer the ham - fisted approach, there's also a quick on / off button on the
dash to toggle sport settings on or off
en masse.
Professional editors, agents, publishers, and readers will get distracted by your unnecessary insertion of
en - or em -
dashes, overuse of commas, and misplacement of semi-colons.
Typography: Details like curly quotes, ellipses,
en -, em -, and double - em -
dashes, indentation, hyphenation, and more make for the smooth reading experience you'd expect from a printed book.
For example, there are different kinds of
dashes: «em»
dashes, «
en»
dashes.
In a manuscript being prepared for publication, it also includes checking that you are using things like em -
dashes,
en -
dashes and hyphens in the correct professional way.
It can detect even the most obscure problems (
en -
dash v. hyphen in a defined term, two spaces instead of one between words, etc.), no matter how deeply they are buried.
In addition to his own criticisms — e.g., that Truss uses nonwords and misuses other words; consistently uses
en -
dashes instead of em -
dashes; opposes the serial comma; and misuses which for that in restrictive clauses — Garner also quotes other writing authorities who deadpanned the book:
The bad news is that (as far as I can tell) the keyboard doesn't do anything to help you use
en and em
dashes.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin, the most valuable cryptocurrency in the market with a $ 227 bln market valuation, is
en route to ending the year recording a 1,341 percent increase in value, as one of the most profitable cryptocurrency in the global market behind Ripple, Litecoin,
Dash and Ethereum.
Plenty of people use hyphens on a regular basis, but when it comes to
en and em
dashes, they're clueless.