Wikipedia has a lot to say about dashes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash
They warn not to confuse dashes with hyphens and minus signs, for example. It turns out there are more dashes than the em dash and en dash I'm familiar with.
The hyphen rates an even longer and more detailed article than the dash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen
Quote:
|
In terms of an orthographic concept, the hyphen is a single entity. In terms of character encoding and display, that entity is represented by any of several characters and glyphs (including hard hyphens, soft or optional hyphens, and nonbreaking hyphens), depending on the context of use.
|
Now I fell badly about just using the minus key willy nilly.