The most confusing thing about an en dash is the fact that it is so similar to two other punctuation marks, the em dash and the hyphen. However, they are only similar in appearance. The uses of each of them are very different, so you should be very careful when choosing between these three.
En Dash vs. Em Dash
If you look at an en dash (–) and an em dash (—) then you’ll see that other than the size, there’s a negligible difference between the two of them. But they differ wildly in terms of their uses. Now, we already know different ways in which we can use the en dash, but here’s an overview of the em dash!
We can use em dashes in place of many punctuation marks like commas, colons, and parentheses. The em dash is used to create emphasis or expand on an idea, or else we use it to show that the sentence is being interrupted. It does not go between dates or times or words that are connected or conflicted like an en dash does, instead it’s a separate punctuation mark entirely.
One of the main things that you should remember is that the most common use of an en dash is to show connection between two numbers, cities, issues, or terms. In contrast, an em dash usually shows emphasis, creates a break in a sentence, or highlights unimportant words in a sentence. If it is possible to replace the punctuation mark in question with parentheses or a colon, then, for sure, it should be an em dash.
En dash vs. Hyphen
Again, an en dash (–) doesn’t look dissimilar to a hyphen (-) besides the size. But again, we should use them differently. Perhaps en dashes and hyphens are more commonly mixed up, because just like an en dash, we use hyphens in the middle of words too.
A hyphen is typically used to connect two words together to create a compound word such as ‘good-looking’ or ‘kind-hearted’. It can also join a prefix to a word such as in ‘co-operation’. As you can see, the differences between a hyphen and an en dash are quite clear, if you remember the contexts in which we should use them both.
The confusion between an en dash and a hyphen exists mostly when it comes to compound adjectives, and yet here there also is nothing difficult. If you create an adjective from two or more separate words, then they should be connected by a hyphen. For example, you might want to describe a child who is three years old: you can call him a three-year-old. Following the same logic, you might write about a well-behaved dog, a brightly-lit room, or a blue-eyed woman: all of these adjectives require a hyphen.
But if one or more parts of the compound adjective is a phrase, or it’s already hyphenated, you should use an en dash. For example, if you are talking about a band that was influenced by country music, you would call it a country music–influenced band. Similarly, you could describe a dress as semi-casual–semi-formal. Both adjectives have an en dash.
