If you’ve ever found yourself confused about the difference between a dash and a hyphen, and when to use a hyphen, you’re far from alone. When you handwrite them, they probably look exactly the same.

When you’re writing by hand, a hyphen and a dash can look pretty similar, although the meanings differ. You might throw in a hyphen to link two well-known words or add a dash—for impact, of course.

Hyphenaters used to be fearless. Bad to the bone. Unflinching in the face of multi-word adjectives that required two or even three hyphens. An editor would see the terms “anti” and “social” and “media ...

The debate about ChatGPT’s use of the em dash signifies a shift in not only how we write, but what writing is for. By Nitsuh Abebe There are countless signals you might look for to determine whether a ...