Hyphen-minus

Look up - in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The hyphen-minus (-) is a character used in digital documents and computing to represent a hyphen (‐) or a minus sign (−).^[1] It is present in Unicode as code point U+002D - hyphen-minus; it is also in ASCII with the same value.

The use of one character for hyphen and minus, and sometimes also for en dash, was a compromise made in the early days of fixed-width typewriters and computer displays. However, in proper typesetting and graphic design, there are distinct characters for hyphens, dashes, and the minus sign. Usage of the hyphen-minus nonetheless persists in many contexts, as it is well-known, easy to enter on keyboards, and in the same location in all common character sets.

Most programming languages, restricting themselves to ASCII, use the hyphen-minus, rather than the Unicode character U+2212 − minus sign, for denoting subtraction and negative numbers.

The en-dash is historically a dash of the same width as a lowercase letter "n". The en-dash indicates ranges, such as 2000–2004, and compound adjectives, as in "Italian–American relations" (having to do with the relationship between Italy and America), as opposed to "Italian-American relations" (indicating relatives who are Americans of Italian descent). Hyphen-minuses are often used instead of en-dashes in these cases, but this practice generally stems from ignorance of the en-dash and is not preferred.

Historically, an em dash is the width of a lowercase letter "m", and may be represented by three hyphen-minus signs in succession (as later in TeX markup), or sometimes two. Microsoft Word typically allows the user to enter an em dash by typing two hyphen-minus signs in succession.

See also

• Dash
• Hyphen
• Plus and minus signs
• Soft hyphen
• -- (disambiguation)

References