Skip to Content
Grammar and Style
book

Grammar and Style

by Mark Peters
February 2014
Beginner
352 pages
6h 29m
English
Alpha
Content preview from Grammar and Style

CHAPTER19

Hyphens, Dashes, Parentheses, and Brackets

In This Chapter

  • The hyphen: a joiner of words
  • The em and en dash: two similar marks with different purposes
  • How (and why) to use parentheses
  • Where [and when] to use brackets

This chapter deals with punctuation marks that cleave, which is an interesting word: it is its own antonym (opposite). To cleave is to bring together, and to cleave is also to separate.

The punctuation marks in this chapter cleave in both senses: hyphens, dashes, parentheses, and brackets bring together some elements of words or sentences while separating others. They are very useful in writing clear, flowing prose.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Grammar of the Edit, 4th Edition

Grammar of the Edit, 4th Edition

Christopher Bowen
Creative Writing

Creative Writing

Casey Clabough
Writing the Short Film, 3rd Edition

Writing the Short Film, 3rd Edition

Patricia Cooper, Ken Dancyger

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781615644407