Dashes and Hyphens between Dates (with Examples)

Top Tip

Avoid Using Spaces

Avoid putting spaces around your dash. This is not a ruling. It is, however, good practice because when you use spaces, your autocorrect will often try to help you by changing your short dash (especially if you've decided to use hyphens) to an em dash (a longer dash, the length of an uppercase "M"). As autocorrect is inconsistent with this "help," you often end up with a mix of en dashes (a shorter dash, the length of a lowercase "n") and long dashes between your ranges.

Using no spaces at all stops autocorrect trying to help you (as it waits for a space before it looks at what you've just typed), and using no spaces also eliminates inconsistencies with spacing. Here's a scruffy example:

With inconsistent spaces and a random long dash: 0900– 0930 Introduction 0930 –1030 Lesson 1 1030 – 1100 Coffee 1100 — 1200 Lesson 2 1200–1300 Lunch

Here's a tidier version:

With no spaces and consistent dashes: 0900–0930 Introduction 0930–1030 Lesson 1 1030–1100 Coffee 1100–1200 Lesson 2 1200–1300 Lunch

Read more about hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.

It's Safe to Use Hyphens in Ranges

Hyphens are not meant to be used for ranges (e.g., 10-12, 1967- 1971). Dashes are used for this purpose. However, given that the hyphen is so easy to find on a keyboard, hyphens have become acceptable for ranges. Only a very strict grammar pedant would pull you up for using hyphens. If this were to happen, you could make a good case for the pedant being out of date.