My dad’s parents came to Canada from Jamaica in 1970. Hyphenated Canadians are people who were born in another country but have Canadian citizenships. They can also be people whose ethnic background is not Canadian even though they’re Canadian citizens.
Is it a dash or hyphen?
The dash (—), also called the em dash, is the long horizontal bar, much longer than a hyphen. Few keyboards have a dash, but a word processor can usually produce one in one way or another. If your keyboard can’t produce a dash, you will have to resort to a hyphen as a stand-in.
Are dashes and hyphens the same on keyboard?
The hyphen is simply the minus sign on your keyboard. Creating a dash is slightly more complicated and varies between word processing programs. For some, tapping the minus sign twice and hitting the space bar is enough, while others require a combination of the shift, control and option keys.
When should I use hyphens?
The Hyphen
- Use a hyphen at the end of a line to divide a word where there is not enough space for the whole word.
- Use a hyphen to indicate a word spelled out letter by letter.
- Use a hyphen to join two or more words to form compound adjectives that precede a noun.
- Use a hyphen to avoid awkward doubling of vowels.
Is hyphen a punctuation mark?
A hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark that’s used to join words or parts of words. It’s not interchangeable with other types of dashes. Use a hyphen in a compound modifier when the modifier comes before the word it’s modifying.
Does French use em dash?
In French, the em dash is more commonly used than in English. In French, there is an extra space included before the following punctuation marks: an exclamation point, a question mark, colons, semicolons, and other ”complex” punctuation marks.
When should you use a dash?
A dash is a little horizontal line that floats in the middle of a line of text (not at the bottom: that’s an underscore). It’s longer than a hyphen and is commonly used to indicate a range or a pause. Dashes are used to separate groups of words, not to separate parts of words like a hyphen does.
When should dashes be used?
Use dashes to mark the beginning and end of a series, which might otherwise get confused, with the rest of the sentence: Example: The three female characters—the wife, the nun, and the jockey—are the incarnation of excellence. Dashes are also used to mark the interruption of a sentence in dialogue: Example: “Help!
What is the difference between a hyphen and en dash and an em dash?
The most obvious difference is the length. Hyphens are shortest, followed by the en dash, and then the em dash. Fun fact: the en dash is the width of the letter “N”, while the em dash is the width of the letter “M”. A hyphen’s main job is to let the reader know that two or more words in a sentence are linked together.
When should a dash be used in writing?
A dash is a horizontal line that shows a pause or break in meaning, or that represents missing words or letters. Note that dashes are rather informal and should be used carefully in writing. Dashes are often used informally instead of commas, colons and brackets. A dash may or may not have a space on either side of it.
