Dash it all

THE SHORT DASH is a punctuation mark called the hyphen. As punctuation marks go, this dash seems to be getting overworked.

Dashes were previously used on analog typewriters mostly to break up words that continue beyond the end of a fixed line of text. This was before computers rearranged spacing to dispense with such a requirement as words no longer need to be broken up when they can be “justified right.”

Still, a series of words strung together as a single modifier, as in “devil-may-care” attitude can describe a world leader’s blasé attitude to treaties and global alliances. The combination of words joined by a hyphen also delivers a bigger punch as in “pie-in-the-sky” optimism to capture the spirit of most commencement exercise speeches.

Political correctness in identifying ethnicity has generated a slew of hyphenated words like African-American, instead of the previously acceptable “black” designation. Especially in a country where immigrants, illegal or not, are being flushed out and sent back to their countries of origin, the ethnic hyphen is a red flag.

The entry of foreign-born or expatriate recruits for local sports, including women’s volleyball, has now revived the hyphen to denote ethnic origins of star athletes. The Fil-Ams have been joined by other countries and have acquired the generic tag of Fil-For to embrace all shades of gray.

Of course, there are the usual (ho-hum) local players in a team that do not get too much attention or advertising billboard exposure. The native breed needs no hyphen, as in Phil-Phil if both parents are locals. A simple Filipino appellation suffices, or the regional origin at most.

It must be noted that the hyphen is different from a slash (or virgule). The hyphen connects ideas while the virgule separates them in a multiple bundle. Those partial to the slash exhibit multi-tasking tendencies when they put in their calling cards such positions as “physical therapist/event planner/landscape architect.” This demonstration of versatility does not always imply proficiency in the claimed areas of endeavor.

The German language dispenses with the hyphen or the virgule. Words can cram different ideas together to form a single word however long this form takes, like schadenfreude — which literally translates into “joy in misery,” referring to the delight in discovering somebody else’s discomfiture. Another example is weltanschauung or world view. (Try pronouncing that.)

French, like American and English, is not averse to the hyphen at all, as in tête-à-tête (literally, head-to-head) for a pleasant conversation of two parties, usually informal and maybe over coffee. In describing a type of duet performance, the French can use the ballet sequence of the pas de deux (or step of two) with no hyphens needed. This can be graceful and elegant.

Hyphens are like the joints of a train, keeping the different coaches apart but still in a single line so they don’t veer off the rails. The hyphen is a short dash and does not require a pregnant pause, just a speed bump between words. The double dash which the computer sometimes converts to a long dash is a hiatus that introduces a new trend of thought or an unconnected side comment. (He smiled broadly — without showing his teeth.)

The hyphen is often used as a modifier when a single adjective does not quite do the job. “Reckless” as a single word can be more accurately captured as “driving-without-brakes-up-to-the-edge-of-the-cliff” attitude. A cliffhanger (a single word) may follow this type of adventure.

As a form of address, the hyphen is also used to introduce a new surname for a now married woman. The unhyphenated name suggests that the woman is unmarried or merely hanging on to her old name which may be more recognizable than that of the new partner, not necessarily a fortune hunter.

The hyphenated name has become an identifying badge for the career woman, seeming to challenge male counterparts to wield a longer name in his calling card. Even with a second name, men employ just a single space as separation, as in a first name like Jaime Augusto. The last name here is also not hyphenated.

This hyphen ventilating may turn off the “punctuations-don’t-keep-me-awake-at-night” type of person. (Is this grammatical outing of interest to anyone at all?)

A single-word modifier may possibly describe the indifferent reader. But can a “skip-to-the-next-page” attitude be more descriptive?