Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Hyphens

This is topic Hyphens in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by TheoPhileo (Member # 1914) on :

Not actually sure if it's called a hyphen or not. But that dash (-) used for parenthetical phrases, whatever it's called. I seem to recall reading somewhere that in a manuscript you should use double hypens "--" to indicate an aside. Is this true?

If so, anybody know a way to keep MS Word from splitting the two onto two separate lines? I could just use a hard return, but I don't want it to come back to haunt me after I make some edits that happen to move it from the end of the line.

Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :

Yes. You use a double hyphen to indicate a dash, which is used for paranthetical comments -- like this -- and to suddenly end an unfinished sentence.

A single hyphen indicates a hyphen, and is used for the normal purposes, e.g. breaking words between lines, making compound adjectives, and indicating ranges.

Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

Actually, you're not supposed to hyphenate words between lines, because an editor might not catch it, and when typesetting, it might come out like th-is.

Posted by Alias (Member # 1645) on :

Any one else frustrated at Word Perfect for changing their double-hyphen back into a single?

Posted by Kolona (Member # 1438) on :

When Word changes a double to a single, the double is a dash. It's heavier and darker than a single hyphen. Often you must manipulate Word to get the change, because the change only occurs when the hyphens are surrounded by letters and spaces.

For instance, to write "What the--" and you want the two hyphens to become a dash, type 'the--' (the hyphen hyphen) and then any letter followed by a space, which will change the double hyphens to a dash. Then go back and delete the extra letter.

How to keep Word from changing double hyphens into dashes? Why would you want that? I get upset when it doesn't change all the doubles into dashes and I have to manipulate it as above.

[This message has been edited by Kolona (edited June 01, 2004).]

Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :

You can get a dash in word by typing (I think, from memory) Ctrl+Alt+hyphen.

Many manuscript submission guidelines say to always use a double dash when submitting, particularly if you're doing so electronically -- you can't actually use a dash character in many places.

Don't know about wordperfect, because I haven't used it since v5.1 (back in the F7 = exit to dos days), but with word the option to turn the behaviour on/off is under Tools/Autocorrect/Replace while I type.

When working on manuscripts, you should probably switch most, if not all of them off, I think.

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

I hate Microsoft Word because it never lets me do ANYTHING I want to do. It always "corrects" everything that I wanted to write "wrong." I never use it, myself.

By the way, in case anybody cares, they're called em-dashes. I think. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Posted by punahougirl84 (Member # 1731) on :

Alias - I was wondering about that happening in WordPerfect, so I checked in help (I have v.11) and you need to hit the dash THREE times to get the em dash! I reformatted an entire story when I saw the double printing as only a single size dash, so the double dash is something else, and the triple does what you want.

I hope it helps!

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Again with the hyphens

Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 1512) on :

In WordPerfect, two hyphens will turn into an en dash, which is what you use for inclusive numbers and other things.

Hyphen: -

En dash: –

Em dash: —

But for manuscripts, I don't think you need to worry about the two hyphens ending up on different lines. (That is, if the publisher requests that you use two hyphens instead of a real dash, you don't need to worry about it). The editor should catch it and change them all to real em dashes.

Posted by rickfisher (Member # 1214) on :

quote:
Any one else frustrated at Word Perfect for changing their double-hyphen back into a single?

You can turn that off in WordPerfect by going to Tools/QuickCorrect, and either unchecking "Replace Words as you Type," or by deleting the entries for "--" and "---". For my working copies I use the em-dash, but for submissions I use "--" because in Courier the em-dash looks almost like a regular hyphen.

Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :

quote:
I hate Microsoft Word because it never lets me do ANYTHING I want to do. It always "corrects" everything that I wanted to write "wrong." I never use it, myself.

You can turn the autocorrect feature off, if you want to. Go to Tools in the menu bar, then click on autocorrect. You can enable or disable any features you want.