So, I’ve taken journalism classes, I’m technically a published writer and have been for years. Even wrote for magazines and newspapers early in my career. I am open to learning new things. However, I just learned something that I’m shaking my head wondering does it really matter?
One of my proofreaders came back with an edit around using a hyphen. She suggested using an em dash instead of a hyphen. Say what?
I dug into a bit more and learned there are en and em dashes and hyphens.
Ok, so here’s how it works:
Confused? I shared this with Jeff and Emma (The J and E in the business name of JCE) thinking, ok, this could be an interesting conversation. I received a couple versions of responses via text – both representing the sentiment I kind of have — WTF???? I just broke a few rules with the prior sentence, but once again. Who technically cares. Well, my proofreader did. I’ll be honest, Word doesn’t correct any of the above examples either, so it must not be that big of deal. Thoughts?
We had another conversation too – around the use of a or an. A unicorn? An unicorn? A unanimous decision? An unanimous decision. I could swear that I was taught to use ‘a’ infront of consonants and ‘an’ in front of vowels. Yes, sort of – only in front of the sounds of a vowel or a consonant, so you have to sound it out. Emma is right, English is soooo confusing.
If you want to learn more about grammar/punctuation, I found a cool just in time resource. let me know what you think. Good luck with the em/en/hyphens. Looks like next time I will address slashes! 🙂
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/
