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Captain Loafy McPoopdick
(4 1 2)

Registered: 06/27/04
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Someone please teach me how to use this "-" correctly
#3971028 - 03/25/05 11:38 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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I have no clue how that would be used. - What does it mean!!!???
Not the negative sign by the way
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Burke Dennings
baby merchant

Registered: 11/29/04
Posts: 81,641
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Maybe like that?
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Captain Loafy McPoopdick
(4 1 2)

Registered: 06/27/04
Posts: 6,571
Loc: 1 5 1 3 6
Last seen: 17 years, 10 months
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Re: Someone please teach me how to use this "-" correctly [Re: Burke Dennings]
#3971054 - 03/25/05 11:48 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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really? but I don't even see it
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lemon_lw
Stranger

Registered: 10/17/04
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Re: Someone please teach me how to use this "-" correctly [Re: Burke Dennings]
#3971061 - 03/25/05 11:51 PM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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one use is to continue a word onto the next line such as
jane likes di- ck.
some words just use it like, co-op.
wish my wife was awake and i could give you better help.
-------------------- In the belly of the Leviathan, one can either despair and perish, or be cheerful and persevere.-Dean Koontz
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BloodNOil
Captain Zeep

Registered: 10/08/03
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Re: Someone please teach me how to use this "-" correctly [Re: lemon_lw]
#3971129 - 03/26/05 12:13 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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sometimes it's used to tack on an explanation -- sort of like this -- to an idea without interrupting the flow too much.
-------------------- It's like a koala bear crapped a rainbow in my brain!
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SoopaX
Criminal DrugAnalyst

Registered: 11/12/04
Posts: 1,690
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Separation of two written word digits, such as twenty-five, requires a hyphen.
Joined last names CAN require a hyphen. I'm really fucked up and I can't think of any more now, later on.
--------------------
Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women, man
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ChuangTzu
starvingphysicist



Registered: 09/04/02
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Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
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There are actually 3 of those---the hyphen, the en-dash, and the em-dash.
"-" is used to hyphenate words (like lemon_lw said) and for separating phone numbers and social security numbers and such. It's called a hyphen.
"--" is used to separate ranges of numbers as in: "I have 15--20 dogs". It's called the "en-dash".
"---" is used sort of like parentheses (although it doesn't always come in pairs) or commas (kinda like BloodNOil said). It's called an "em-dash".
The reason you never see "---" anywhere is because it gets typeset to a single line as wide as the letter M in that font (hence the name "em-dash"). The "--" is a single line as wide as the letter N. When you're using fixed-width fonts those multiple hyphens are usually all you can do. Here is an actual em-dash: "?", and an en-dash: "?" (notice that the en-dash isn't rendered properly in this font...).
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delta9
Active Ingredient


Registered: 10/28/04
Posts: 5,390
Loc: California
Last seen: 13 years, 3 months
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Re: Someone please teach me how to use this "-" correctly [Re: SoopaX]
#3971386 - 03/26/05 01:46 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Using hyphens
Quote:
Two words brought together as a compound may be written separately, written as one word, or connected by hyphens. For example, three modern dictionaries all have the same listings for the following compounds:
hair stylist hairsplitter hair-raiser
Another modern dictionary, however, lists hairstylist, not hair stylist. Compounding is obviously in a state of flux, and authorities do not always agree in all cases, but the uses of the hyphen offered here are generally agreed upon. 1. Use a hyphen to join two or more words serving as a single adjective before a noun:
a one-way street chocolate-covered peanuts well-known author
However, when compound modifiers come after a noun, they are not hyphenated:
The peanuts were chocolate covered. The author was well known.
2. Use a hyphen with compound numbers:
forty-six sixty-three Our much-loved teacher was sixty-three years old.
3. Use a hyphen to avoid confusion or an awkward combination of letters:
re-sign a petition (vs. resign from a job) semi-independent (but semiconscious) shell-like (but childlike)
4. Use a hyphen with the prefixes ex- (meaning former), self-, all-; with the suffix -elect; between a prefix and a capitalized word; and with figures or letters:
ex-husband self-assured mid-September all-inclusive mayor-elect anti-American T-shirt pre-Civil War mid-1980s
5. Use a hyphen to divide words at the end of a line if necessary, and make the break only between syllables:
pref-er-ence sell-ing in-di-vid-u-al-ist
For line breaks, divide already hyphenated words only at the hyphen:
mass-produced self-conscious
For line breaks in words ending in -ing, if a single final consonant in the root word is doubled before the suffix, hyphenate between the consonants; otherwise, hyphenate at the suffix itself:
plan-ning run-ning driv-ing call-ing
Never put the first or last letter of a word at the end or beginning of a line, and don't put two-letter suffixes at the beginning of a new line:
lovely (Do not separate to leave ly beginning a new line.) eval-u-ate (Separate only on either side of the u; do not leave the initial e- at the end of a line.)
The Dash
Quote:
Use a dash [ ? ] (or two hyphens [ -- ] on old-fashioned typewriters) or dashes as a super-comma or set of super-commas to set off parenthetical elements, especially when those elements contain internal forms of punctuation:
All four of them?Bob, Jeffrey, Jason, and Brett?did well in college.
In most word-processors, the dash is created by holding down the option key and hitting the key that has the underline mark above the hyphen. This can vary, though, from program to program. Usually, you get an en dash (see below) with the option + hyphen key, and you get the larger em dash (used more frequently) with option + shift + hyphen keys.
Do not use dashes to set apart material when commas would do the work for you. Usually, there are no spaces between the dash and the letters on either side of a dash, although the dash is frequently shown that way in documents prepared for the World Wide Web and e-mail for typographical and aesthetic reasons (because the WWW authoring and e-mail clients have little control over line-breaks).
In writing dialogue, the dash is used to show breaks in thought and shifts in tone:
"How many times have I asked you not to ?" Jasion suddenly stopped talking and looked out the window.
"Not to do what?" I prompted.
"Not to ? Oh heck, I forget!"
A dash is sometimes used to set off concluding lists and explanations in a more informal and abrupt manner than the colon. We seldom see the dash used this way in formal, academic prose.
Modern word processors provide for two kinds of dashes: the regular dash or em dash (which is the same width as the letter "M," ? ) and the en dash (which is about half the width, the same as the letter "N," ? ). We use the em dash for most purposes and keep its smaller brother, the en dash, for marking the space between dates in a chronological range: "Kennedy's presidency (1961?1963) marked an extraordinary era. . . ."; in time: 6:30?8:45 p.m.; and between numbers and letters in an indexing scheme: table 13?C, CT Statute 144?A.
The en dash is also used to join compound modifiers made up of elements that are themselves either open compounds (frequently two-word proper nouns) or already hyphenated compounds: the Puerto Rican?United States collaboration, the New York?New Jersey border, post-Darwinian?pre-Freudian theorems. The Gregg Reference Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style both recommend using the en dash whenever a compound modifier is combined with a participle as in "a Frank Lloyd Wright?designed building," "a White House?backed proposal," and "a foreign exchanged?related issue." A string of modifiers in a single compound, though, is joined with hyphens: hilarious, never-to-be-forgotten moments. If you are using an old-fashioned typewriter that cannot create an en dash, you can denote to your typesetter or editor that a hyphen is to be converted to an en dash by using a hyphen and hand-writing the letter "n" above it.
Some reference manuals are urging editors and publishers to get rid of the en dash altogether and to use the em dash exclusively, but en and em are still handy words to know when you're trying to get rid of those extra e's at the end of a Scrabble game. Finally, we use what is called a 3-em dash (or six typewriter hyphens) when we're showing that someone's name or a word has been omitted (perhaps for legal reasons or issues of taste): Professors ______ and ______ were suspended without pay for their refusal to grade papers.
-------------------- delta9
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delta9
Active Ingredient


Registered: 10/28/04
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Re: Someone please teach me how to use this "-" correctly [Re: ChuangTzu]
#3971388 - 03/26/05 01:47 AM (18 years, 10 months ago) |
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Ah, you beat me to it
-------------------- delta9
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Jellric
altered statesman

Registered: 11/07/98
Posts: 2,261
Loc: non-local
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Just slap it in there when no other punctuation will do.
-------------------- I AM what Willis was talkin' bout.
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