Hyphens and dashes · Grade 6
A hyphen - is short and joins words or parts of words: a well-known writer, re-enter, twenty-one. A dash – is longer, with a space on each side, and separates parts of a sentence: I opened the box – it was empty!
Key facts
- Two or more words that work together to describe a noun take hyphens: a part-time job, a ten-year-old boy, an up-to-date map.
- No hyphen after a word ending in -ly or after very: a brightly coloured kite, a very tall tree.
- Numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine have a hyphen, and so do fractions in words: forty-seven, two-thirds.
- A hyphen can change the meaning: re-sign (sign again) and resign (leave a job); a man-eating shark (a shark that eats people) and a man eating shark (a man who is eating shark).
- A single dash adds a pause before a surprise or extra detail: He had one dream – to fly. A pair of dashes adds extra information in the middle: My uncle – a famous chef – cooked dinner.