Category: Dashes

When a compound adjective precedes a noun it is describing, we often need a hyphen: prize-winning recipe, twentieth-century literature. If a compound adjective comprises more than two words, we use as many hyphens as are needed: a three-day-old newspaper, a long-in-the-tooth baseball manager. Try however to punctuate the compound adjectives including proper nouns in these phrases: a …

The singular form is parenthesis, but the plural parentheses is the word you’re more likely to see. Both words have a wide range of related meanings, and what some people identify as a parenthesis, others call parentheses. So let’s keep it simple. For our purposes, a parenthesis is one of a pair of curved marks …

[Note that our discussion of sic also has been updated as it applies to use in 2024.] We have noticed a dismal new trend: not capitalizing words that need it. Flouting the rules of capitalization is yet another indignity visited upon our beleaguered language by self-appointed visionaries who seem hellbent on transforming standard English, even …

Sometimes it can be easy to confuse dashes with hyphens when writing or editing content. For example, you might see text such as 9am-5pm in one reference and 9am–5pm in another. Which is correct? The two different marks do not interfere with our understanding of the intended information; however, one mark is more precise than the other. …