A review of the Cambridge learner's dictionary

Macmillan Publishers Ltd announced in 2012 that they would no longer be producing printed versions of their learner’s dictionary. This announcement was greeted in various ways by the lexicographical community, with some applauding the decision and others criticising it. Given the present climate of increasing online use, is it still worth publishing paper dictionaries? I was recently given a new learner’s dictionary to review, so I’ll put some thoughts here and leave you to decide what you think.


Cambridge learner’s dictionary (fourth edition) 2012, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
ISBN: 978-1-107-66015-1

The Cambridge learner’s dictionary is designed for intermediate learners of English as an addition language (EAL), for levels A2-B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. I am not familiar with the CEFR, but the website http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/about-us/what-we-do/international-language-standards/ informs me that A1 is a beginners’ level while C2 indicates mastery of a language. The dictionary also indicates the CEFR levels for many entries, so that inexpensive, for example, is labelled as B1, while meeting and melon are labelled as A2. It would be really helpful if future editions could also relate the CEFR levels to other exams such as IELTS and TOEFL. There seems to be no direct equivalence between these tests, but https://www.ielts.org/researchers/common_european_framework.aspx shows roughly how the scores equate.

This dictionary has many excellent features. For example, it highlights “Word partners” (collocations) and provides boxes for “Other ways of saying”, so that learners can use language idiomatically and in context, while expanding their vocabulary. It also indicates “Common learner errors”. For instance, on p. xii we read, “I need some advice. I need an advice. To make advice singular say a piece of advice.” Extra help pages at the end of the dictionary provide further exercises (with answers).

Alternative British and American English spellings are frequently given, with many words (e.g. centre/center) listed at both these variants. Other words (e.g. harbour) appear only with the British spelling, however, making the dictionary occasionally less user-friendly for American English speakers. Only British English spelling is used for definitions and examples, and Australian variants are not included at all. For instance, lolly is defined as "a large, hard sweet on a stick". In Australia, lolly is the term for what is called a sweet in the UK, and it is usually not on a stick.

The example sentences used at many entries are generally helpful, showing how words are used in context and how they can be varied grammatically. For example, at the verb fan we read, "The spectators sat in the bright sun, fanning themselves with newspapers". Phrasal verbs are also included, so that under the entry for fan we find fan out: "If a group of people fan out, they move out in different directions from a single point". There is also a picture of an electric fan and a hand held paper fan.

Labels such as "informal" help the reader to know when to use a word. Synonyms are explained, not merely listed, so that the reader can distinguish between them. This is a helpful feature that is not included in most thesauri.

The colour pictures are attractive and helpful, with up-to-date examples. For example, alongside dress and jacket we find salwar kameez. Some pictures are not to scale, however, or include no point of comparison. Thus we have a good black and white picture of a koala on p. 409, but no indication of how big this animal is. The colour pictures of various sports are also not always easy to follow. Do pitcher and batter, for example, refer to people or equipment?

Some entries are not entirely clear, as in lone, defined as "alone: lone parents". It would be hard for a learner to work out the meaning or use of this word. Similarly, the word partners for love include "brotherly/unconditional love", implying that brotherly and unconditional are synonyms. At other times, more information would be helpful. Mayonnaise is defined as "a thick, cold, white sauce that is made from eggs and oil". It would be useful to add that mayonnaise is often put on salads.


The centre material is generally very good, with "Pieces and quantities" pointing out important collocations such as "a drop of oil" and "a hunk of bread". It is also useful to have UK and US variants for parts of a car, and to point out elsewhere that the UK and US use imperial units. However, some explanations might be confusing: "In the UK, people usually say their weight in stones and pounds. e.g. I weigh nine stone three." Here, the singular use of the word stone should be explained. The "Speaking naturally" section is helpful.


The CD-ROM gives spoken pronunciation and allows the user to record their voice for pronunciation practice. There is also a thesaurus, so you can really expand your vocabulary.

If you want to get the most out of this dictionary, you really should read the section on “How to use this dictionary”. Most users don’t refer to this material, but we sell ourselves short when we fail to use it; it really is invaluable.

I can recommend the Cambridge learner’s dictionary for intermediate learners of English, and the Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary for those who want a wider range of vocabulary and don’t mind using a larger book. Both are also available online at http://dictionary.cambridge.org/.

Is there still a place for paper dictionaries? I think there is. Not everyone has access to the internet, or to a computer. In those circumstances, a paper dictionary is invaluable.

Let us know what you think by voting in the poll to the right of this post!

Welcome to our first Singaporean Grammar Gang member

It is with delight that we welcome Mr Jyh Wee Sew as the latest addition to the Grammar Gang.  Jyh will be our first Singaporean contributor and we welcome his insights into all things Singlish!   (This is not, of course, to undermine Jyh's extensive credentials as a linguist.)

Jyh has been an editor in a Malay publishing house; a teacher of Malay; has worked for the Ministry of Education and is member of the Centre for Language Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore.

Jyh has been a recipient of many awards including an 'Outstanding Contribution Award' (2004) from the Ministry of Education in Singapore, & 'Hadiah Karya Kencana' (2011) in the category of Social Sciences and Humanities from Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka (Malaysian Language and Literary Board) in Kuala Lumpur. He is currently an editorial member of
Theory and Practice in Language Studies.  

Jyh's publications include three books with University Malaya Press; a selection of refereed articles and many Malay articles in internally refereed publications.

Our warmest Grammar Gang welcome, Jyh.

Helen Johnston - University of South Australia
Linda Bergmann - Purdue University US
Lisa Emerson - Massey University New Zealand
Julia Miller - Adelaide University
Andrea Duff - University of South Australia

Eager Beavers



(Photo from stock.xchng)


Associating a particular animal with a human being in idiomatic phrases is an interesting form of description used in many languages. English, for example, has many interesting animal-like descriptions which are often invoked in sarcasm, jokes, speeches, and written expressions.

The skunk is used to describe a person with bad qualities, e.g. unfair or unkind attributes. The pig is invoked to highlight greed or gluttony in a person, and the tortoise is associated with slowness, while the chicken is the target animal in referring to cowardice. A snake may be used as a reference for deceitful person. In contrast, another reptile, the crocodile, seems more neutral as it is used in British English for referring to people walking in a line (cf. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). It is also used negatively, though, when we refer to someone shedding crocodile [false] tears.

At the unpleasant end of the linguistic spectrum, we have several animal-like terms used as references for less favorable human traits. Catty refers to a quarrelsome (female) character, while bitchy refers to a person fond of using hurtful words. The word dog finds its way into several human-related references. Someone can be a dirty dog or a lucky dog (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1987, p. 301), and the Longman Dictionary also says that a dog may refer to ‘a very unattractive woman’ in American English.

In comparison, the Malay reptile buaya (crocodile) is used to refer to a lecherous man, similar to biawak (monitor lizard), normally invoked as a reference for a womanizer. The Malay word anjing (dog) is a negative reference usually meant for an untrustworthy person or a cheat. According to a student who was studying Malay as a foreign language, he once overheard someone calling her husband suami anjing (a dog husband) angrily on the phone. Kucing (cat) is normally used as a reference for a pretentious or duplicitous person, like a tame cat which is yet capable of snatching a fish in a split second.

While the Mandarin word for pig, 猪, refers to stupidity, the Malays use udang (prawn) as the equivalent of low intelligence in humans. I vaguely recall the phrase prawn-head in English denoting the same reference.

Other animals used in Malay as metaphorical references for humans includes lintah (leech) for referring to loan sharks, or persons living at the expense of others or parasites; tupai (squirrel) for referring to a man who is irresponsible in sexual relationships; ayam (chicken) to denote a wife; and kerbau (ox) for a husband (cf. Sew, 2009).

In conclusion, animal-human references are a smart communicative strategy created for humans to talk about humans. It may be conjectured that speech communities across the world introduce animal attributes as indirect references of humans to maintain gregarious social interaction.

What human/animal expressions do you have in your language?


References

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (New Edition). 1987. Essex, UK: Longman House.

Sew, Jyh Wee. (2009). Semiotik Persembahan Wacana [Semiotcs of discourse performing]. Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Universiti Malaya.


The writer of this post, Jyh Wee Sew, teaches Malay at the Centre for Language Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

The Grading Game - A guest review

This submission is a review of an online game from Dr Chad Habel.

Chad is a Lecturer in Higher Education and is the Coordinator of Adelaide University's University Preparatory Program.

Images taken here are from The Grading Game

My interest was immediately piqued when I came across a short review of The Grading Game during my usual web-trawling. Although not obsessed with grammatical correctness, I have done enough teaching of grammar and writing to wonder if a game could effectively build these skills into an engaging and fun format. With my particular interest in game-based learning I was keen to see if gameplay elements could combine with digital pedagogy and assessment design to potentially build player's language skills. The Grading Game is about the best I've seen and with a free version and a very cheap ($0.99) full version it's certainly worth a look.

This game was developed during a "game jam" event where participants were encouraged to develop (yet another) shooter game. (Game jam is like boot camp for game developers, where groups of developers get together for 48 hours to create new game designs.) The outcome is the Grading Game, which uses content from Wikipedia (correctly attributed via an information page) to pose 'correction' challenges for the player.

You, the player, act as a misfortune-plagued teaching assistant to the despotic Dr Snerpus. Not only does the Professor berate his teaching staff and goad them for their financial troubles, his main aim seems to be failing his students and ensuring that they get the lowest grades possible. This will appeal to anyone who has undertaken postgraduate studies while trying to make ends meet by teaching. This approach may slightly alienate those not familiar with the North American system, though.

The core gameplay revolves around ‘grading’ assignments written by fictitious students, who are given names and Instagrammed photographs to build the scenario. The gameplay is perfectly designed for the iPad, as the aim is to read a piece of text and tap on each error in a limited timeframe. Finding all errors (up to twenty or thirty) will earn a time bonus, while touching words that are not errors will erase two seconds off your time limit. You score points for corrections and accuracy in the form of money, which is taken off your fictional student loan. There are a variety of game modes in the full version, and a surprisingly large amount of content: nearly a hundred different topics that ‘students’ write on. The errors are generated so you don't see the same sector errors twice, and they consist of spelling errors, extra words, run-on sentences, and vaguely defined ‘grammar’ errors. The presentation is simple but slick, with minimalist animations and sound effects. All this makes The Grammar Game quite impressive, and overall it is fun, engaging and quite addictive.

The question that comes to mind is how well this game helps players to learn anything about grammar, or find errors in their own and others’ writing. On the up side, the game does engage players in an authentic task: reading text for errors and identifying them under pressure. Unfortunately, though, the actual errors that occur are a little less authentic, since they could often be found by a spellchecker and are generally unlikely to arise in student writing. What is very useful, however, is that the errors are typified: at the end of a round the player is shown the errors they didn't pick up and they are tagged as spelling, grammar, run-ons, and so on. This element of the game may encourage the player to begin thinking about why a particular error is wrong, and this could lead to more strategic thinking about language use is properly transferred across contexts. Ultimately, the game does a good job at giving players opportunities for finding errors under pressure, and this skill in and of itself can be quite valuable, if writers can apply it to their own work.

Unfortunately, however, the main learning model present here is all-too prevalent in learning games. Players are expected to learn through exposure and drill exercises, which is a pretty limited form of learning. For example, identifying why an error is wrong is not built into the gameplay or the reward/assessment system, so any learning along those lines is likely to be coincidental. Having said that, it is true that language development is one area where immersion and regular contact and practice is more beneficial than it may be in other domains. There is also some effort towards direct instruction within the game environment: Dr Snerpus' memos often contain explanations of points of language use, although they are not usually linked to the activities to follow. Put simply, this game is not designed for learning, it is designed for fun.

To be fair, The Grading Game is never presented as a learning system beyond introducing some interesting trivia in the content of the levels. The learning element is an expectation I have applied to it based on my own interests. As a game for fun, it is fantastic, and I am inclined to enthusiastically recommend games which have people playing with words or numbers, even just for the general contact with the life of the mind. At the same time it feels like there is an opportunity lost here, but it will require specific expertise in both game design and pedagogy to build a learning game for grammar that has genuine power to help people learn about the nuances of our language.

Tis the season to celebrate diversity

Happy (Western) New Year to all our Grammar Gang readers - near and far.

Did you know in the last week, most of our visitors came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and India?   This underscores the fact that visitors to the Grammar Gang are a culturally and linguistically diverse group.

When I first started the Grammar Gang with my colleague, Linda Bergmann (from Purdue), I was a Language and Academic Adviser at the University of South Australia.  My work with language, at that time, was about clarity of expression (aided by correct grammar and punctuation); appropriate tone or register in writing; understanding the task (essay or report?); introducing sources and referencing; explaining data and research and understanding structure (introductions/conclusions/topic sentences).

These days, my work has taken me to another sphere of influence in language, and that is language for inclusivity in a diverse world.  This is linked to the work our team of Aboriginal tutors and I do with computer scientists, engineers and environmentalists in preparing them for professional practice.

To talk about language and diversity is a big BIG subject - way bigger than this post.   However - with the help of some friends - I would like to start a conversation to which I hope you will add.


Written and spoken language are key conduits to a respectful environment and the mores and culture around these change over time. It is so very important for students to understand respect and protocols around language.  If we don't attempt to get this right we can look a bit silly (at best) or unprofessional and disrespectful (at worst).

For example, where once it was regarded as acceptable to use the term 'Aboriginal tribes', a student would be encouraged to use the expression 'Aboriginal community'.  Similarly, in Australia, we tend to refer to 'Aboriginal' and 'non-Aboriginal Australians' rather than names which are based on skin-colour - such as 'black' and 'white'.  The acceptability of this can be very different across cultures.

Sarah Landers - one of our tutors at UniSA - developed a resource for students and others to use and here are a couple of slides to demonstrate respectful terms AND diversity in language:

Landers, S.  2011  'Appropriate Terminology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People'

Landers, S.  2011  'Appropriate Terminology for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People'

Sometimes, though, context and history can make 'finding the right words' confusing.   For example, the use of the term 'Indigenous' is ambiguous in Australia.   Our Federal Government in Australia recognises this word (over the use of 'Aboriginal') because it encompasses Australians from the Torres Strait Islands who would not normally identify with the term 'Aboriginal'.  

John Browne, Senior Academic Adviser in the Indigenous Student Support Unit at UniSA points out that South Australians much prefer the term 'Aboriginal' over the use of 'Indigenous'.

He said, 'Anyone can be "Indigenous" to a country if they are born there, but Ab-original denotes the "first Australians" prior to colonisation and since beginning of time'.

'Indigenous' is a more academic or official label implying anyone who was born in Australia, he said.

To make matters more interesting, there were many, many Aboriginal countries (or nations) prior to European Settlement in Australia.   Some people may well refer to themselves as Ngarrindjeri; Kaurna or Pitjantjatjara, depending on what part of Australia they come from.


In our experience teaching in the Indigenous Content program, we find students are almost always well intentioned - even if sometimes they don't quite get it right.    According to Sarah, using correct and respectful language is everybody's business and she says we all have a role to play in pointing out the right language.   There is a simple bottom line:  if you are unsure of the correct terminology, ask.

Now - over to you, dear readers.  We would like to hear about your experiences with language and diversity - particularly as these things relate to culture.  It's a BIG subject and a most interesting one.

Onomatopoeia

(Photo from stock.xchng)

Onomatopoeia


What a word to spell! The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (online) defines it as ‘the creation and use of words which include sounds that are similar to the noises that the words refer to’. We have a colleague in Singapore, Mr Jyh Wee Sew, who has contributed a guest post on this interesting area:

The legacy of Saussure’s posthumous work which led to the notion of arbitrariness as the typical system of signification in language remains prevalent in linguistics. Most textbooks of (English) language studies explain that language signs denote meaning with little relationship between the sign and its meaning. However, there are plenty of works which go against the notion of arbitrariness in language.

A major study on non-arbitrariness or iconicity is sound symbolism. The first work on sound symbolism that comes to mind is Jespersen’s symbolic [i] that connotes smallness or insignificance (Jespersen 1922 in Jakobson &  Waugh 1987, p. 187). This notion of [i] symbolising weak and small references was tested by Edward Sapir with consistent accuracy. Examples are teeny, wee and itsy-bitsy (Ohala 1994) and clink, jingle, click, plink and bing (Rhodes 1994).

In Australian English we have terms like mozzies for mosquitoes or a seventeen year-old kid (cf. Urban Dictionary). Come to think of it, many words describing or implying fast or high speed in motion have the letter ‘i’ in the words: quickly, hurriedly, lightning [speed], simultaneous, witty, swift, slippery, thrive, jive, tinkling, etc.

I recall reading JR Firth’s work on sound symbolism decades ago. Firth was the first person to coin the term ‘phonestheme’ for submorphemic elements symbolizing a certain meaning that recurs in vocabulary. It is not difficult to trace a loud noise or sound in words ending with –ash. Thus, we have crash, trash, splash, smash, mashed, bash, lash, dash, hash etc.

In fact, we relate a straightforward sound symbolic reference whenever we use hoo-ha, chit-chat, tumultuous, dum-dum or dummy, cockatoo, burst, bomb, pang, boom etc. in spoken or written forms.

Interestingly enough, the noise made by a cockatoo is sound symbolically transferred into Malay, hence the bird is called kakak tua, which is often confused by learners as old sister because kakak denotes elder sister, and tua denotes old in Malay. Winsted (1959 reprinted in 1960, p. 137) lists the Malay word kakak as carrying three meanings, 1. to quack, 2. elder sister (kin or platonic), 3. kakatua (cockatoo).

Playing by ear may be fun(ny) when we learn and compare onomatopoeic terms, i.e. names that have their origins in the sound of the reference.

References to follow up:

Jakobson, R & Waugh, L 1987, The sound shape of language, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.

Ohala, JJ 1994, ‘The frequency code underlies the sound symbolic use of voice pitch’, in L Hinton, J Nichols, & JJ Ohala (eds), Sound symbolism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 325-347.

Rhodes, R 1994, ‘Aural images’, in L Hinton, J Nichols, & JJ Ohala (eds), Sound symbolism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 276-292.

Winsted, RO 1959, An unabridged Malay-English dictionary, p. 137.


Jyh Wee Sew

Jyh teaches Malay at the Centre for Language Studies, National University of Singapore

Thanks for the fascinating post, Jyh.

Another area we discussed is the words we use to describe the sound that animals make in different languages. In English, bees go 'buzz', cows go 'moo' and ducks say 'quack'. Jyh tells me that in Malay, bees go 'dengung' and ducks say 'kuak', while in Mandarin bees go 'wung wung', ducks say 'ya ya' and cows go 'mu mu'. 

We'd love to know how you describe animal sounds in your language!

Learning Articles Parrot Fashion

Do you have trouble using the words ‘a’, ‘an’ or ‘the’ in English? You’re not alone. These words are called ‘articles’, and although they’re easy for native speakers to use, I find that articles present huge problems for anyone who speaks English as an additional language. This is understandable when we consider that many languages don’t use articles at all.

The new Ms Parrot video will give you lots of advice on choosing articles in English.  

To use articles correctly, learners of English have to decide whether a noun is used in a definite sense, with the word ‘the’, or an indefinite sense, with the words ‘a’, ‘an’ or nothing at all. Deciding whether a noun is definite or indefinite is very hard. The question of definiteness is an almost philosophical one, as what is definite for one person may not be definite for another. For example, if I refer to ‘the Dalai Lama’ or ‘the Pope’, we all know who I am talking about, as there is only one Dalai Lama and one Pope at a time. However, if I say ‘the Prime Minister’ I could be referring to many people and you would need to look at the context in order to decide who I am talking about. In Australia, the Prime Minister is currently Julia Gillard. If you live in another country, though, ‘the Prime Minister’ might refer to Dr Manmohan Singh, or Yoshihiko Noda, or Stephen Harper.

Even nouns used indefinitely are not without problems.

Some words are indefinite in English but definite in other languages. For example, I can say in English ‘I like chocolate’, but in French ‘chocolate’ would take a definite article: ‘J’aime le chocolat’. To make matters harder, ‘a’ is used before a consonant sound (not just a consonant), so that words like ‘uniform’, ‘university’ and ‘year’ take ‘a’, while ‘an’ is used with a vowel sound, before words like ‘egg’, ‘owl’ and ‘hour’. Uncountable (non-count) nouns (like ‘fun’) and plural nouns (like ‘games’) take no article at all when they are used indefinitely.

The main thing when choosing articles is to decide whether a noun is countable or uncountable, and then work out whether it is definite or indefinite. A singular countable noun must take an article. If you’re not sure whether a noun is countable, check in a learner’s dictionary.

If you’d like more help with articles, and some practice exercises, visit this new website: www.adelaide.edu.au/english-for-uni. The website features the new Ms Parrot video, highlighted in the previous post. There is also a link to a video evaluation with the chance to enter a draw to win an iPod Shuffle.

Have fun learning about articles, and Thanks a Million for helping me to create the character of Ms Parrot!

Thanks a Million!

Thank you to all those who took part in the poll last year to choose a personality for a grammar movie. The most popular choice was a lady detective in the style of an Agatha Christie character, and thus Ms Parrot the grammar detective was born.

Last week, Ms Parrot was sitting in her study reading her memoirs (which coincidentally contained examples of most uses of the definite (the) and indefinite (a/an) article in English) when she received a suspicious letter saying that English grammar was being held ransom and would only be saved if she donated $1,000,000 to the Grammar Survival Fund. At the same time, all the articles flew away from the page she was reading. Luckily, she had also just received an invitation to take part in a quiz show called 'Thanks a Million', with the chance to win - you've guessed it - $1,000,000. She rushed off to join the show and, helped by the wonderful 'Thanks a Million' quiz show audience and the flamboyant game show host Oscar Cicada, won a million dollars and saved English grammar!

The final version of this grammar movie, together with practice exercises and answers, will be available online in October or November. Rest assured that English grammar is now safe!

What is a sentence?

http://bngeek18.deviantart.com/art/My-puzzled-face-168534301

 
If you were asked, how would you define a sentence? Ask your friends. Ask you family. Ask your students. You may be surprised and amused by their responses.

Not long ago I was asked to take a class on basic grammar at a regional campus about 450 km from Adelaide, the state's capital city and the university's home base. All the students were in the first semester of a pathway program leading into an undergraduate degree. The class profile was typical for this regional campus: most hadn't studied for many years, were female and were native English language speakers. I knew that these students would find the idea of a class on grammar scary at best.

To put them at ease I began the class with the story of a guy I'd worked with some years ago who had a very definite and somewhat surprising answer to my sentence question:

'It's a group of 40 words about something.'

Why 40 words? He'd worked out from the novels he'd read that most sentences were about forty words long. This snippet of information explained why I had joined the ranks of staff who couldn't make much sense of his essays. Every sentence was forty words long.

It also crystallised for me why so many students, educated in a system which has de-emphasised the teaching of grammar, have no way of reviewing or correcting their texts at sentence level.

How did my regional students define a sentence?

 'A group of words about one idea.'

'It's a group of words that starts with a  capital letter and ends with a full stop. You put the full stop where you need to take a long breath.'

'In sentences you always start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. If you need to take a short breath you put in a comma. You put the   full stop where you need to take a long breath.'

'A sentence has to say something, make sense.'

'A sentence has a beginning, someone doing something and an end. It's about one idea.'

'All you want to say about one thing.'

'It has to have a, what do you call it, a subject, but I forget the rest...'

Everyone agreed that long ago a primary school teacher had linked sentence writing to breathing. Is it any wonder that holding up a mirror to some student essays reveals some very heavy breathers and others panting their way to that final full stop?

Any suggestions for those who write breathily?

The Grammar Gang welcomes Helen Johnston - Language and Learning Coordinator at the University of South Australia.  Helen has worked at UniSA for 'a long time' and her interests are teaching academic literacies - especially to those returning to study after a long absence.  Welcome Helen!

Dash it! What's the point of a hyphen? Help Nest feature # 6

Op-Eds Italy, 2008

Hyphens, em dashes and en dashes.  They all look the same so where, dear reader, should we use them?  In fact, why should we use them?

Before I present you with this Help Nest feature (thank you Judit), I should declare a deep and long-hidden secret.

For a very long time, I really didn't know there WAS such a thing as an 'em' or an 'en' dash.   I spent the better part of my forty years in complete ignorance. This was until one of my grammarian friends said, 'no, Andrea, you don't use a hyphen there, you use the elegant em dash'.

As for hyphens, I tend to use them in a cavalier and careless stream-of-consciousness* way in my writing.   

This is not entirely treason, as it seems that rules and uses of the hyphen (or its cousins the em or en dash) are really quite loose and used in any number of creative ways to aid expression.

As the image above suggests, the hyphen is going the way of much punctuation. There tends to be an inclination toward minimalism and they are used less and less.  However, what I have attempted to provide are a few examples of how they might be used, to what effect and some of the rules of their use.


One of the most common uses (given in the example below) is to join compound words.

noun + adjective	noun + participle	adjective + participle
accident-prone	computer-aided	good-looking
sugar-free	power-driven	quick-thinking
carbon-neutral	user-generated	bad-tempered
sport-mad	custom-built	fair-haired
camera-ready	muddle-headed	open-mouthed

Oxford dictionaries online (accessed 2 July, 2012) 

Our friends at Purdue, in their excellent resource on hyphen use, describe how hyphens can be used for prefixes such as 'ex'  ('ex-officio') and 'self' ('self-assured').  They also explain how hyphens come in handy for separating words at the end of a line.  However, they stress this should be after a syll-

able.

The University of Sussex, explains the cardinal rules of hyphen use.  These are to use them to achieve clarity in writing; to avoid unnecessary use and to consult a well-regarded dictionary for consistency.

On the last point, they give the example of  'land-owners, land owners or landowners?' to highlight how confusing the hyphen can be. In my Oxford Concise, it is 'landowner'.  I have seen it written as 'land owner' in The Daily Telegraph (UK) .  Although I did not see any hyphenated versions of the word, I did find an online definition of 'land-holder in the Collins Dictionary.  See why it's so confusing?

Roy Peter Clark, in his whimsical work The glamour of grammar (2010) describes a novel use for the b----- hyphen, which is to leave letters out of a word to partially disguise its profanity.   The bl--dy hyphen, he explains, is sometimes used to simply replace the vowels when cheeky editors are feeling a bit bold.  He pays homage to the hyphen by saying that (in addition to the ellipsis) it can be your best friend when leaving something out of a text for the sake of brevity, taste or dramatic effect.

The em dash—and I had to cut and copy this dash from another source because I forgot which keys to use—is longer and used to separate or shift thoughts midstream through a sentence.  I find it easy to see why some people swear by it but tend to forget to use it because it is cumbersome to insert.  (One important rule is never to put a space before or after it.)

The en dash is half the width (-) of the em dash and is used to show a range in numerical or other values. For example, 46-102 or November-January. As you can see, I couldn't figure out how to put in an en dash so I used a hyphen.  (I am sure purists would not approve and would adroitly know the six key combination to use to insert the correct punctuation.)

In summary, I would not expect you to use my blog post as a definitive guide (given my opening admission).  However, I would ask you to consider that hyphens and other dashes are handy; the purpose of each is different and there is an abundance of (sometimes conflicting) advice to find on the internet or in style guides.

I do welcome (as always) your comments and suggestions for other readers.  Finally, thank you to Judit for her query on the Owl/Possum Help Nest on June 5 which inspired me to research hyphens and their dashed friends further.

* Stream-of-consciousness was something I learned this morning when reading a couple of chapters of Henry James's The portrait of a lady.  Yes, reader, James coined this handy term to describe the free-falling, wide-ranging thought patterns of his lovely protagonist, Isabel.   Just thought I'd share something I found interesting.   :)