THE DASH

527. The dash is a much abused punctuation mark. A great many writers who are not familiar with the rules of punctuation use a dash whenever they feel the need of some sort of a punctuation mark. Their rule seems to be, "whenever you pause make a dash." Punctuation marks indicate pauses but a dash should not be used upon every occasion. The dash should not be used as a substitute for the comma, semi-colon, colon, etc. In reality, the dash should be used only when these marks cannot be correctly used.

528. The chief use of the dash is to indicate a sudden break in the thought or a sudden change in the construction of the sentence. For example:

529. The dash is frequently used to set a parenthetical expression off from the rest of the sentence when it has not as close connection with the sentence as would be indicated by commas. As for example:

530. The dash is also used in place of commas to denote a longer or more expressive pause. For example:

531. The dash is often used after an enumeration of several items as a summing up. For example: