Why on the keyboard. Why do the letters A and O have dashes on the keyboard? How to type an em dash on the keyboard

Many people ask where is the dash on a computer keyboard? Or how to type a dash on a keyboard? How to put an em dash in Word? How to write a hyphen on the keyboard and not confuse it with a minus sign?

Are you also bothered by the fact that there is no normal em dash on the computer keyboard? There is only a hyphen and underscore(also called lower hyphen). Well, there is also a minus sign on the numeric part of the keyboard. But the long dash icon on the keyboard is missing, as a class. Just a disgrace! But it, an em dash, is used quite often.

What if I need to type an em dash in Word, on a blog, on a page on a social network, or just somewhere in the comments?

Today we will look at several ways to quickly type an em dash and an en dash on a computer keyboard. Choose the most suitable option for yourself and use it to your health.

You will also learn the difference between a hyphen and a dash. After all, replacing an em dash with a regular hyphen or a minus sign is just the worst way that can be. Especially if novice writers and even copywriters suffer from this. Horror is simply terrible!

Literacy is harmful to the peasant: teach him, so he, perhaps, will not plow.
I. A. Goncharov. "Oblomov"

What are the dash, hyphen and minus signs

1. Just a hyphen -
2. Minus sign -
3. Middle dash -
4. Long dash -

As you can see, the difference is noticeable. The shortest character is a hyphen.

Where is the hyphen on the keyboard

The hyphen on the computer keyboard is in the upper number row, directly above the letters Z and X in the Russian layout. Or between the Latin P and the open curly bracket sign ( . Many mistakenly confuse it with the minus sign, which is actually located on the right, in the farthest corner of the keyboard.

The icon above the hyphen is not a long hyphen on the keyboard at all. It's actually called an underscore, or it's also called an underscore.

Use cases for the hyphen

The hyphen is used very often in words and phrases. Here are typical uses of the hyphen:

• For attaching particles: anyone, somewhere, someone, sometime;
• To attach prefixes: first, in English;
• As a sign of abbreviation: b-ka (library), district (district), mr (mister);
• In phrases and compound words: business lunch, Internet cafe;
• As part of compound words, some of which are transmitted in numbers: 25 percent, 100th anniversary;
• Before the end when transmitting with the help of numerals: 1st, 2nd.

Use cases for the dash

• Instead of the missing member of the sentence: I'm just in shock!
• Between subject and predicate: Five five - twenty five.
• Direct speech: - Hello, - she said.
• To indicate pauses: Yielding is shameful!
• To indicate routes: train Moscow - St. Petersburg.

How to type the middle dash on the keyboard

The middle dash sign is usually used to indicate numerical ranges: 10 - 15, two - three. It is also sometimes called a long hyphen, although this is not correct. The middle dash is still a dash.

To type the middle dash character on the computer keyboard:

1. In Word, hold down the Alt key and press the minus key on the numeric keyboard layout. This will give you the middle dash. Also, Word automatically replaces a hyphen with an en dash when you separate it on both sides with spaces. For this to work, you need to type a hyphen with spaces on the sides, and then the next word and put a space after it. Then the hyphen will turn into a middle dash.

2. If you are typing text on your blog, in a status on a social media page, or in comments anywhere, then use the following simple method: hold down the Alt key and type the number 0150 on the numeric keyboard layout. Get the middle dash.

The hyphen does not replace the dash! Therefore, use them for their intended purpose.

Now the colon has begun to look almost more archaic than the semicolon, and dashes have taken over many of its functions.
William Zinser How to write well. The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction Texts.

How to type an em dash on the keyboard

And now about the most important thing: how to type an em dash on the keyboard and do it quickly.

1. If you are typing in Word, you can type an em dash by simply double-clicking the hyphen key. Word itself converts double hyphens to em dashes. But! Beforehand, you will need to set up such formatting in order for it to work.

Therefore, there is another option on how to put an em dash on the keyboard, which always works by default: if you simultaneously hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and press the minus sign, you will get an em dash. Everything is simple!

2. If you are typing anywhere other than Word, hold down the Alt key and on the numeric keyboard layout, type the number 0151. Get an em dash.

I hope the article was useful to you. Now you know the difference between a dash and a hyphen and how to type them on a computer keyboard.

Use punctuation correctly!

In the modern world, there are few people who can do without a computer or laptop. This is a hobby and work and entertainment, and simply, banal communication. But this article will focus not so much on the technique itself, but on its element, or rather, the keyboard.

Many, using the keyboard, have noticed (and many have not) that the Russian letters “a” and “o” on the keyboard of a laptop or computer have horizontal lines. Some didn’t really wonder why they were there, many guessed for themselves, and the majority decided to “Google” or “Yandexize” and read this article. Let's get an answer.

Dashes on letters - why?

There are a large number of people who type professionally on the keyboard, practically without looking at the keyboard and for convenience, in order to indicate the conditional center of the keyboard with letters - these lines are applied. Often, a person is not even aware of these dashes, but the brain receives the right message and understands where the center of the keyboard is and how other letters are located relative to these characters.

Another option is a label for visually impaired or blind people. It is very important for them to have at least some kind of reference point on the keyboard, and then it will be possible with the help of relatives to learn how to print, knowing where other letters are relative to the letters with dashes. Of course, you can also navigate with respect to the Enter key or the spacebar, but having a hint in the center of the keyboard will make things go faster.

>>> So that when you blindly learn to type, you know where half of the keyboard is related to the right / left hand. In short, it divides the keyboard into 2 parts. At 5, the same principle, it is in the middle and you can easily determine which number is where.

>>> These dashes are for the "blind" typing method. It was also used on typewriters. You must type with 10 fingers without looking at the keyboard.

>>> These are special drawings for blind typing. Professional typists (there used to be organizations and were called - Mashburo, typists worked there) do not print looking at the keyboard, only in text

>>> They are designed so that when you are touch typing with ten fingers so that your fingers can find their place on them, this is especially useful when you are learning touch typing. The index finger of the left hand is placed on the letter A (F) and the index finger of the right hand is placed on the letter O (J).

>>> This is for the blind.

>>> For the blind - the center of the keyboard

>>> for tactile keyboard orientation for touch typists

>>> to place your hands correctly when touch typing

>>> When you learn to type on the keyboard blindly, these buttons will be a support.

>>> for convenience when printing, when you look only at the monitor

>>> et esli ty hochesh pechatat po pravilnomu vsemi paltsami, to te nada lozhyt ukazatelnye paltsya tuda...^^

>>> Depends on the keyboard. I have a keyboard - the middle keys are convex. 10 fingers.

>>> There is also a letter A) this is done for the blind printing method

>>> This is the starting position of the fingers. according to them, where is which letter, when typing on the keyboard is not looking.

Artemy Lebedev.

On keyboard one dash, it is usually to the right of zero and above the letters "Z" and "X". Uninformed people call it alternately either a hyphen, a minus, or a dash. Lebedev explains to us what it is four(considering two types of dashes) different characters. Actually they at least nine, and I will tell you about it now.

Concerning minus(−), everyone is already well aware of it: the minus sign is used in mathematical expressions, has the same width as any number, is aligned to the height of the capital letter, unlike the dash and hyphen, and is written in HTML as − .

At this point, everyone usually goes to the dash. But wait, we haven't covered three characters yet!

What symbol is used in writing phone numbers (555‒41‒72)? Hyphen, you say; but no! There is a separate symbol for this: digital dash(figure dash). It looks (‒) almost like a minus, but it is not a minus.

You may ask: why then can't you use a minus sign, since it looks exactly the same? Because a minus is a subtraction sign, and in a phone number, nothing is subtracted from anything. For the same reason that you need to use em instead of i to select text. It cannot be explained, it can only be known.

The digital dash has the code U+2012 and is written as ‒ in HTML.

O hyphen, also called a soft hyphen, is also known to many. This symbol, denoted in HTML as - , is placed in words between syllables in those places where a hyphen can be done. It is not displayed on the screen, except when it hits the end of a line; in this case, the browser (they say even Firefox has learned to do this since the third version) does not wrap the whole word, but puts a hyphen and wraps the rest of the word.

This is especially helpful with long words, where hyphenation creates huge blank spaces on the right side of the screen. A huge drawback of the hyphen character is that it is inconvenient to arrange it manually (however, autotypography programs can handle this) and that its use clutters up and makes the source code unreadable (therefore, it is better if the hyphenation is done by the CMS at the generation stage). HTML code from the text stored in the database).

Another hyphen-like character is the dash (⁃), used as list markers ( damn bullet). The Lebedev Studio rightly notes that in the Russian typographic tradition there is no such thing as a bullet (meaning traditional circles with squares), and they suggest using an (long) dash as a marker; as you can see, that's exactly what they do (or did) on their site and even went on a rampage with an article explaining how to do it.

In fact, there is a special symbol for list markers, which has the code U+2043 (however, Lebedev claims that this does not apply to Russian typography). In HTML, it is quite easy to make such a marker for a list using CSS:

ul( list-style: none inside; ) ul>li: before( content: "\2043"; margin-left: -1ex; margin-right: 1ex; )

(Of course, the above code is not perfect, and will only work in the right browsers, but you get the idea, I hope.)

Now we can finally move on to the dash; here everything is already well traveled: the difference between en dash(-, en dash, a dash as wide as the letter "n", -) and em dash(—, em dash, a dash as wide as the letter "M", -). It is known that Russian typography exclusively uses em dashes (although there are disputes about the possibility of using em dashes in numerical ranges), while in the West en dash is usually preferred.

The em dash is also used in Russian in dialogues. In the West, for this purpose, they often use a separate symbol horizontal bar (―):

- Je m'ennuie tellement, dit-elle.

- Cela n'est pas de ma faute, rétorqua-t-il.

So, nine different lines:

Sign	HTML	Name	Purpose and use
-	-	hypsominus	instead of all other dashes in the absence of technical feasibility
‐	‐	hyphen	to separate parts of a word: “light gray”, “in my opinion”, “someone”, etc.
−	−	minus	mathematical expressions: 2 − 3 = −1
‒	‒	digital dash	phone numbers and other digital codes
­	-	hyphen	in (long) words where you can hyphenate
⁃	⁃	damn bullet	list marker
-	-	en dash	western typography
—	—	em dash	Russian typography
―	―	horizontal bar	dialogues (in Western typography)

And, for comparison, in one line:
- ‐
−
‒
­
⁃
-
—

Often, those who are just starting to work with computers ask themselves why the letters on the keyboard are not in alphabetical order and why some keys (on A and O, and on the number 5 in the digital part) have dashes or bulges.

The letters are arranged in a certain order, because there are letters that are used more often and that is why they are in the middle of the keyboard. The creators of the letter arrangement arranged the keyboard in such a way as to take into account the fact that some letters are used in combination with others and placed them side by side.

Now let's talk about dashes and their role. The dashes were applied in order to designate a conditional center. The person himself is not aware of the location of these dashes, but our brain recognizes them and gives the command to the fingers so that we can type text without looking at the keys.

And another function of these very dashes is a kind of mark for people who see poorly or do not see at all. After all, it is very important for them to have a landmark in the space of the keyboard, and then with the help of special techniques and an experienced mentor, you can learn all the other letters located on the keyboard.

That's all the secrets of the very letters and dashes. As with many strange things, there is nothing at all strange about these dashes.

If you find an error, select the text fragment with it and click Shift+E or , in order to inform us!