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The hyphen-minus symbol -is the form of hyphen most commonly used in digital documents. 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]
Minus signs may also be coded by −. Another kind of hyphen is the non‑breaking hyphen, available in the Wiki code as {}. This character has the sole purpose to be a non-breaking word joiner. Unlike the hyphen-minus, the dashes and minus sign do not have any special role in the MediaWiki markup language.
In some styles, minus signs are represented using an en dash instead of a minus sign or a hyphen. This is not done in Wikipedia. In math formulas a hyphen-minus codes for a minus sign, but in text − produces the minus sign (see below). En dash ("–", MOS:ENDASH) are slightly longer than hyphens. They are used:
Hyphen: Dash, Hyphen-minus-Hyphen-minus: Dash, Hyphen, Minus sign ☞ Index: Manicule, Obelus (medieval usage) · Interpunct: Full-stop, Period, Decimal separator, Dot operator ‽ Interrobang (combined 'Question mark' and 'Exclamation mark') Inverted question and exclamation marks ¡ Inverted exclamation mark: Exclamation mark, Interrobang ...
For example, an en dash is entered using ⌥ Opt+-; an em dash (—) is entered using ⇧ Shift+ ⌥ Opt+-. Also on a Macintosh pressing and holding certain letters (the vowels and a few other letters) brings up a pop-up menu of related special characters, such as accented versions of vowels, which can be clicked on or selected numerically.
The hyphen, minus sign, and dashes of various widths have been collapsed into a single character (-), sometimes repeated to represent a long dash. The spaces of different widths available to professional typesetters were generally replaced by a single full-character width space, with typefaces monospaced .
The dash ( ‒ , – , — ) and hyphen or hyphen-minus - is used: as a line continuation when a word is broken across two lines; to apply a prefix to a word for which there is no canonical compound word; as a replacement for a comma, when the subsequent clause significantly shifts the primary focus of the preceding text.
This essay explains use of the non-breaking hyphen character ‑, U+2011, coded by ‑ or ‑. Once displayed in a page, the non-breaking hyphen can be copied into words, or abbreviations, so they will not wrap at the hyphen character, such as an interstate highway symbol, "I‑94", which would always wrap to the next line as a whole word.