Reply to comment about "Kicking the em dash habit"

Note

Please consult the “Comments and interaction” section on the Canada.ca Terms and conditions page before adding your comment. The Language Portal of Canada reviews comments before they’re posted. We reserve the right to edit, refuse or remove any question or comment that violates these commenting guidelines.

By submitting a comment, you permanently waive your moral rights, which means that you give the Government of Canada permission to use, reproduce, edit and share your comment royalty-free, in whole or in part, in any manner it chooses. You also confirm that nothing in your comment infringes third party rights (for example, the use of a text from a third party without his or her permission).

Submitted by Our Languages blog on June 4, 2018, at 13:34

Hi, Randy,
You’re right about the uses of the hyphen, en dash and em dash. For more information, see our article entitled "Hyphens and Dashes—The Long and the Short of It" (http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/pep/index-eng.html?la...).
As for the spaced en dash, it does seem to create a more visible separation between the two parts of the sentence. And you’re in good company in preferring it, as the quotation from Robert Bringhurst shows!