SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2019A love letter to the em dash
Punctuation invariably arouses heated pedantry, but few marks divide
opinion as much as this one. So what is it about a flat line that gets
people going, wonders Kate Mooney
Grammar and punctuation are hotly contested parts of the English language (iStock)
After the Oxford comma debate and the death knell of the period, the latest mark to define and divide
us—breaking up our thoughts, adding emphasis to our convictions, alternately vexing and delighting
readers—is the em dash.
For some writers, the em dash is a vice that their editors occasionally forgive but more often forbid. It has
been duly cast as an alluring alternative to the comma, colon, semicolon and full stop in the “distracted
boyfriend” meme.
The longest of the dashes—roughly the length of the letter “M”—the em dash is emphatic, agile and still