Em Dashes

What is an Em Dash?

Em dashes are used to help writers clarify meaning.

Where Did Em Dashes Come From?

The dash comes from typography—the work of setting, arranging, and printing types. An em dash is a dash that is the width of an “M.” (Reference 3) Attributed to 12th century Boncompagno da Signa, the dash was originally meant to act as the full stop, what we now use as the period. It wasn’t until Johannes Gutenberg’s bible that the dash gained a slight curve and became the comma. The rest of the dash’s history is murky at best. (Reference 2)

In poetry, em dashes are a favored punctuation. Instead of quotation marks, James Joyce used the em dash throughout Ulysses and instead of commas, Emily Dickinson used em dashes in most of her poetry.

 

How Do You Use an Em Dash?

Some Good Rules to Follow:

  1. Always close the em dash when using in the middle of a sentence (just like you would parentheses).

  2. Can replace parentheses, commas, colons, semicolons, or quotation marks, though it may be considered less formal (Reference 3)

When to Use Em Dashes:

To clarify when a word or phrase is being used for extra emphasis

Use em dashes to emphasize or bring context into your sentence. (Reference 1)

References

  1. “Semicolons, Colons and Dashes.” The Writing Center The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Accessed May 10, 2021. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/semi-colons-colons-and-dashes/

  2. Houston, Keith, “The Mysterious Origins of Punctuation,” BBC, September 2, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150902-the-mysterious-origins-of-punctuation

  3. “What is an Em Dash? And How Do You Use It?.” Thesaurus.com, Accessed May 14, 2021. https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/em-dash/#:~:text=The%20em%20dash%20is%20an,uses%20(and%20possible%20overuses).

  4. Keenan, Kathleen. “The Best Emily Dickinson Poems + How to Get Started Reading Her Work.” BOOK RIOT, March 28, 2019. https://bookriot.com/best-emily-dickinson-poems/ 

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This page was published August 30, 2023.