For Small-business Owners, Virtual Assistants, and Freelancers
Wednesday, 14 October 2026
To some, Apostrophe is an album by Frank Zappa that contains sound advice about yellow snow. To others an apostrophe is a punctuation mark with more than one possible meaning. The following article is all about this second understanding. Apostrophe. (n.) A punctuation mark indicating possession, the omission of letters or numbers (in informal writing), […]
A typical dictionary definition will be along the lines of:
Ellipsis. (n.). Plural ellipses. A series of three full stops (…) used to signify that written matter has words missing.
However, such definitions leave a lot unanswered.
The ability to dash properly is a useful skill, when working with running text for instance. Still, I often see otherwise dashing material that’s been dashed by being dashed off with a wrong dash. It’s a dashed shame.
Em Rule (n.): British. A dash of one em length that is used to create a strong sense of digression, associated thought, or an aside to the theme of a sentence.
En Rule (n.): British. A short dash, the width of an en, used in punctuation.
