I'd really like the board's opinion on this please. I've noticed some editors are now using a dash in place of an ellipsis to indicate a unfinished thought or sentence. Is this a general practice I've just never noticed before or is it new? I'm a great one for ellipsis but I think the dash looks quite snazzy. Any opinions please?

I've noticed people using the dash instead too, I think it must be a new way of doing it.

Personally, I like the ellipsis, but would want to do it the correct way, so maybe someone out there can tell us which is the correct one to use now.

Usual correct practice is that a dash is used when speech is interrupted, and an ellipsis when it trails off into silence:

I grabbed him by the throat. 'Don't you dare talk to me like - ' 'Shut up, you bastard!' He hit me across the mouth.

She said, 'I don't know if you think we should...' I looked at her, but she didn't seem to know what to say next.

Dashes are properly used - as they were in the old days - in pairs, rather like parentheses (otherwise known as brackets).

On the other hand - well, it's a looser modern thing, isn't it? Using dashes for this kind of thing - the kind of hesitation in dialogue - the kind which isn't grammatical enough for a comma. I got endlessly picked up for doing this too much by my MPhil tutor. He was quite right. It's lazy, and too non-specific.

Emma

Thanks Emma, that clears it up nicely. I just didn't want to be doing something clearly old fashioned by using the ellipsis, especially as I use it too much anyway.

Hilary