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The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline.The most common versions are the en dash –, generally longer than the hyphen but shorter than the minus sign; the em dash —, longer than either the en dash or the minus sign; and the horizontal bar ―, whose length varies ...
Em dash ("—", MOS:EMDASH) are even longer and are used solely to set aside a phrase—like this—in a sentence. Em dashes and en dashes, when used to set off parentheticals, are interrupters, along with parentheses (round brackets) and commas; [1] the principal differences are that parentheses are used to offset text of an optional or "aside ...
The second is a link to the article that details that symbol, using its Unicode standard name or common alias. (Holding the mouse pointer on the hyperlink will pop up a summary of the symbol's function.); The third gives symbols listed elsewhere in the table that are similar to it in meaning or appearance, or that may be confused with it;
To insert a dash or minus sign, use the toolbar below the edit box. Click where you want the character to be inserted, select "Insert" from the pull-down menu, and then: To insert an en dash (–), click on the first character (the shorter dash). To insert an em dash (—), click on the second character (the longer dash).
The space before a spaced dash should preferably be a non-breaking space ( ). Em dashes are not spaced. Dashes have the following uses: Unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes are used to indicate interruption in a sentence. In this use, on any one page, either use unspaced em dashes consistently, or use spaced en dashes consistently.
On most keyboards, it is the only character that resembles a minus sign or a dash so it is also used for these. [1] The name hyphen-minus derives from the original ASCII standard, [2] where it was called hyphen (minus). [3] The character is referred to as a hyphen, a minus sign, or a dash according to the context where it is being used.
Thus, a compromise appears to be in order, viz., to follow qp's suggestion of not explicitly inviting the use of spaced em dashes, but not proscribing their use. Old: The following five dash styles are currently in use in Wikipedia: Tight (unspaced) em dashes—like this. Spaced em dashes — like this. Spaced en dashes – like this.
Further, running dialogue does not use quotation marks beyond the first sentence, as changes in speaker are indicated by a dash, as opposed to the English use of closing and re-opening the quotation. (For other languages employing dashes, see section Quotation dash below.) The dashes may be used entirely without quotation marks as well.