How to Use Hyphens and Dashes
Punctuation has been around a long time, but it's still causing controversy in the digital age. The Greek scholar Aristophanes of Byzantium invented the first formal system of punctuation in around 200 BCE . In 2025, em dashes are often considered a sign of AI usage. But do you know the differences between hyphens and dashes, and when to use them? Hyphen, en dash, em dash: James Hutchinson Hyphens A hyphen (-) is a symbol used to join two (or more) separate words together. Hyphenation indicates a combined meaning, and adds important clarity to otherwise ambiguous phrases. When two adjectives are joined together to modify the same noun, this is known as a compound adjective . Example: Humans are carbon-based lifeforms. En Dashes An en dash ( – ) is a symbol principally used to indicate a range between two figures. However, it can also be used to separate two related parts of a sentence, with a single space appearing on either side. It is the same le...