What Are Dashes Used for?

A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that's an underscore). It's longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Dashes are used to separate groups of words, not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does.

What is the purpose of using dashes?

Dashes are commonly used to indicate an unexpected or emphatic pause, but they serve other specific functions as well. Dashes are often used to mark interruptions within sentences, illustrate relationships between words, and demarcate value ranges.

What is the use of dashes in writing called?

The em dash is an incredibly versatile punctuation mark that can be used instead of parentheses, commas, colons, or quotation marks in a sentence.