User:Wbm1058/Hyphen-minus, En dash and Em dash
Hyphen-minus, En dash and Em dash[edit]
After editing Wikipedia for several months I became aware that these are actually three distinct characters with nuanced uses. The WP:DASH guideline explains how the nuances are applied in Wikipedia articles. These characters vary in length, from hyphen-minus (shortest) to em dash (longest):
The hyphen, or minus sign, is the key between 0 (zero) and = (equal sign) on most keyboards, which also have a numeric keypad, and the minus sign there enters the same character. It is the standard ASCII hyphen. The two dash symbols generally can't be entered by striking a single key on most keyboards, so must be entered by other means. Wikipedia:How to make dashes gives short and long explanations. A problem with the easiest-to-learn method, copy and paste, is that it's not always easy to tell which character you're copying, as the differences in their lengths can be subtle. An en dash looks the same as a hyphen on an edit page. One way to be sure you're using your desired character is to use HTML character entity references: – (–) and — (—), but these can reduce HTML text readability.
These characters can easily be entered using the "toolbar/toolbox/edit field" at the bottom of edit pages—the box that includes Sign your posts on talk pages: ... Cite your sources: under the default Insert Drop-down list. The first character to the right of the Insert drop-down list is the en dash and the second character is the em dash (that's en dash and em dash, not hyphen-minus and en dash—I suppose there's no need for putting the hyphen-minus in the toolbar since it can be directly entered using its keyboard key).
There is actually a figure dash which I think is supposed to be shorter than an en dash, and a horizontal bar which may be longer than an em dash. In my Google Chrome browser, they look the same to me. There are also distinct hyphen and minus characters. There are no character entity references for these, but they can be entered using numeric character references. Copy and paste each of these eight hyphen/minus/dash/bars into your browser's search tool, and you'll find that your browser may be able to tell the difference between each of these eight unique characters, even if you can't! This is not an exhaustive list. For example, there are also soft hyphens.
- - is a hyphen-minus (ASCII keyboard)
- - is a hyphen-minus (002D)
- ‐ is a hyphen (2010)
- ⁃ is a hyphen bullet (2043)—it's probably not a good idea to use hyphen bullets for a list such as this one!
- − is a minus (2212)—this can also be entered from the Insert bar, it's between the ± and × (in my browser, it looks more like an en dash than a hyphen, go figure!)
- ‒ is a figure dash (2012)
- – is an en dash (2013)
- — is an em dash (2014)
- ― is a horizontal bar (2015)
I confess that my ego was stroked a bit when an editor copied an earlier version of this to start WP:Hyphens and dashes.
Mathematical symbols for arithmetic operations[edit]
Three of the four symbols for arithmetic operators—plus and minus signs, multiplication sign and obelus—(+−×÷) can be entered using the Insert bar. Plus sign (+) is on the keyboard (shift-equal sign) or numeric keypad. If you don't want the shorter hyphen-length minus sign, use the Insert bar to get the en dash-length minus sign. Multiplication (×) is not the same as the character (x).
Prime and double prime[edit]
Two more symbols on the Insert bar enter the symbols for feet or minutes (the prime) and inches or seconds (the double prime).
- ′ is a prime (2032)—a prime (′) is not the same as an ASCII keyboard or 0027 apostrophe-quote (') '
- ″ is a double prime (2033)—a double prime (″) is not the same as an ASCII keyboard or 0022 double quote (") "