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Grammar & Punctuation Videos 93 videos

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Dashes 2377 Views


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Description:

A dash is a fun and flashy way to let your reader know that there is awesomeness coming up. It’s like the colon’s cool older cousin. This video covers how to use both em dashes and en dashes and the difference between hyphens and dashes, to make sure you’re using the dash just right—how cool.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak in stashes Rushman Robert is a

00:07

dashing young man with his romantic and adventurous nature there's

00:11

nothing he loved so much as sweeping the ladies off

00:14

their feet with his amazing grammar And which punctuation mark

00:18

does dashing robert like to deploy in his quest for

00:22

love Why the dash of course a dash is a

00:25

dramatic kind of punctuation mark while a colon may go

00:29

unnoticed in the middle of a sentence because it does

00:32

nothing more than service a set up two additional information

00:35

and frankly a lot of jokes in the grammar community

00:38

A dash signals that something exciting is about to happen

00:41

It tells us the buckle our seat belts because the

00:43

ride is about to get all kinds of bumpy For

00:46

example let's say dashing robert is discussing his vacation plans

00:49

with a lady friend He tells her i have a

00:52

destination in mind Colin my aunt merle's lake house robert

00:57

would use the colon because well let's be honest and

00:59

morals Lake house is totally blend not worthy of a

01:02

dash However if robert has somewhere more exotic and exciting

01:05

plan for his vacation he'd say i have a destination

01:08

In mind dash a cruise around the med on my

01:12

luxurious yacht cruise around the med Oh how dashing or

01:16

what If robert is telling one of his conquest what

01:18

he likes for dinner Well i eat the same thing

01:21

every thursday night Colon macaroni and cheese with a sliced

01:24

up hot dog Anything inside of it Yeah sorry bob

01:27

but kraft out of a box on ly merits a

01:29

colon However if robert says instead i eat the same

01:33

thing every thursday night dash the nine course tasting menu

01:37

from the french laundry well five hundred dollar dinners from

01:40

michelin starred restaurants deserve a dash Now that we've talked

01:44

a little about how dash is our full of drama

01:46

let's talk about the different types of dashes First comes

01:49

the end dash which is long and then the end

01:52

dash which is short in most senses Like our examples

01:56

involving robert we use the longer m dash which can

01:59

be inserted into a sentence in one of two ways

02:01

either from the special character menu in word or by

02:05

typing to hyphens next to one another The hyphen key

02:09

is in between the zero key and the equal sign

02:11

Key at the top of the keyboard this thing right

02:14

here whatever happens don't screw up and accidentally put a

02:17

hyphen in place of a dash Hi pins are used

02:19

to split or join words not to signal to the

02:22

reader that there's impending awesomeness ahead As for the end

02:26

or short dash it's on ly uses to indicate a

02:29

range of inclusive numbers For example if dashing robert were

02:33

to email one of his girlfriends with a message that

02:35

includes the dates he's going to be in paris he'd

02:38

bust out the end dash If robert wants to let

02:40

another lady friend no end to meet for their weekly

02:43

tango lesson he'd send her a note like this one

02:45

way will then seventy wednesday night at eight p m

02:49

on january first and dash january twenty ninth Essentially the

02:54

end ash is taking the place of the word too

02:57

In this example one final note about dashes be they

03:00

of the m or end variety We can put a

03:03

space on either side of a dash so that our

03:05

sentence would read Dashing robert gave girlfriend number three a

03:09

very special present for her birthday space m dash space

03:13

A pug puppy or we can leave out those faces

03:16

so that we end up with dashing Robert gave girlfriend

03:19

number three a very special present for her birthday M

03:22

dash a pug puppy We can use spaces on either

03:26

side of a dash or not It's a stylistic decision

03:29

on the authors part Just be sure to keep it

03:31

consistent And now dashing Robert must away He has so

03:35

much to do dash and so many more hearts to 00:03:38.285 --> [endTime] steal Hello robert

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