THE DASH.
Rule I. Broken Sentences.—When a sentence is broken off abruptly, or there is an unexpected change in the sentiment, or hesitation is to be indicated, a dash should be used.
EXAMPLES.
Prince.—“I tell you what, my cousin Buckingham,—”
Buck.—“What, my gracious lord?”—Shakespeare.
“I only feel—Farewell—Farewell!”—Byron.
“You will think me foolish;—but—but—may it not be that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children set about their undertaking? May he not have spent an hour of his immortality in playing with those dear little souls?”—Hawthorne.
“Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but—live for it.”—Colton.
Rule II. Concluding Clause.—When several expressions follow each other in succession, having a common dependence on the concluding part of the sentence, a dash is frequently placed before the clause on which they depend.
EXAMPLES.
“If you think it a crime in this writer that his language has not been braided and festooned as elegantly as it might be; that he has not pinched the miserable plaits of his phraseology, nor placed his patches and feathers with that correctness of millinery which became him,—then find a civil and obliging verdict against the printer!”—Curran.
“To foster industry, to promote union, to cherish religious peace,—these were the honest purposes of Lord Baltimore during his long supremacy.”—Bancroft.
REMARKS.
1. A dash is sometimes used to give prominence or emphasis to an emphatic conclusion; as, “Fortune, friends, kindred, home,—all were gone.”—Prescott.
2. When such words as namely, that is, &c., are omitted, a dash is sometimes used; as, “Many actions, like the Rhone, have two sources,—one pure, and the other impure.”—Hare.
3. When a word or an expression is repeated for emphasis, a dash should be placed before it; as, “It is this, I conjure Your Lordships, for your honor, for the honor of the nation, for the honor of human nature, now intrusted to your care,—it is this duty that the Commons of England, speaking through us, claims at your hands.”—Sheridan.
Rule III. Subjects.—When the subject of a general statement, or the subject of a quotation, is in the same paragraph with the subject-matter, a dash should separate the subject from what follows.
EXAMPLES.
The Bible.—“A person who professes to be a critic in the niceties of the English language ought to have the Bible at his fingers’ ends.”—Macaulay.
Letter-Writing.—“Common interests are necessary to give permanent stability to epistolary connections. We may love a man dearly, and yet find no time to write ten lines to him.”—From the German of Rudolph Lindau.
REMARKS.
1. A subject is a word or expression about which some statement is made.
2. A dash should be placed between a quotation and the author from whom the quotation is taken.
3. When a question and an answer are in the same paragraph, a dash is frequently inserted between the two; as, “Saw you my lord?”—“No, lady.”
4. When as, thus, as follows, &c., introduce an example or a quotation, a dash should be placed after the comma or colon, if what follows commences a new paragraph; as,—
“All we possess, and use not on the road,
Adds to the burden we must bear.”—Goethe.
Rule IV. Letters or Figures Omitted.—When letters or figures are omitted, a dash should be used to indicate the omission.
EXAMPLES.
“Why, to comfort me, must Alice W⸺n be a goblin?”—Lamb.
Mark xi. 1-10. Gen. v. 3-9.
REMARK.
3-9 is equivalent to 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
GENERAL REMARK.
The dash is frequently used to give prominence or emphasis to an expression.
EXAMPLES.
“In the quiet air, there was a sound of distant singing,—shepherd voices.”—Dickens.
“Wealth has its temptations,—so has power.”—Robertson.
“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rains may enter,—but the king of England cannot enter! all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”—Pitt.
Rule V. Parenthesis.—Two dashes are sometimes used instead of the usual marks of parenthesis.
EXAMPLES.
“A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground.”—Hawthorne.
“Jackson—the omniscient Jackson he was called—was of this period. He had the reputation of possessing more multifarious knowledge than any man of his time.”—Lamb.
REMARKS.
1. When the sentence, without the parenthesis, would require a comma where the dashes are used, each dash should be preceded by a comma; as, “See that aged couple,—a sad sight, truly,—John Proctor, and his wife Elizabeth.”—Hawthorne.
2. If the parenthetical expression is a question or expresses emotion, an interrogation or an exclamation point should be placed before the second dash; as, “The laurel of the hero—alas for humanity that it should be so!—grows best on the battle field.”