Double hyphen

Double hyphen
Double hyphen in a Fraktur typeface.

The double hyphen (, , or ) is a punctuation mark that consists of two parallel hyphens. It is not to be confused with two consecutive hyphens (--), which usually represents an em dash (—) or en dash (–). In order to avoid its being confused with the equals sign (=), the double hyphen is often sheared slightly.

Usage

The double hyphen is used for several different purposes throughout the world:

  • Some typefaces, such as Fraktur faces, use the double hyphen as a graphical variant of the single hyphen.
  • It may be also used for artistic or commercial purposes to achieve a distinctive visual effect. For example, the name of the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel is officially written with a double hyphen.
  • In Merriam-Webster dictionaries if a word is divided at the end of the line, and the division point happens to be a hyphen, it is replaced with a double hyphen to graphically indicate that the divided word is normally hyphenated, for example cross
    country
    .
  • In several dictionaries published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all such compound words are linked with double hyphens, whether at the end of the line or not, and the normal use of the single hyphen for non-compound words is retained. An example from the first or second page of such dictionaries is Aaron'srod. Examples include the Century Dictionary and Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language.
  • It is used as a distinct punctuation mark by Coptic language scholars.
  • In Japanese, the double hyphen (ダブルハイフン daburu haifun?) in rare cases replaces an English en dash or hyphen when writing foreign words in katakana due to their potential confusion with the prolonged sound mark (). It is generally used to separate multiple foreign names, as in the cases of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto (ラッセルアインシュタイン宣言?) and The Waldorf=Astoria Collection (ウォルドルフアストリア?). It may also be used to separate a person's given and family names or to separate other foreign words. The middle dot (·) is however much more commonly used for these purposes. The double hyphen is part of the JIS X 0213 standard, but is not included in more commonly used character encodings, such as Shift-JIS and EUC-JP. For this reason, the equals sign is frequently used in its place.

Unicode

When the double hyphen is used as a functionally equivalent graphical variant of the single hyphen, it is represented in Unicode as a normal hyphen.

When used as a punctuation mark distinct from the single hyphen, the double hyphen is represented in Unicode by two different code points. A third code point has been assigned for the use of a generic (non-Asian) double hyphen at U+2E40, though this character is still under ballot and has not been formally adopted in the standard.

Name Glyph Code point Purpose
DOUBLE OBLIQUE HYPHEN U+2E17 Western orthography (including Coptic language scholarship)
DOUBLE HYPHEN U+2E40 (under ballot) (in Latin and other scripts)
KATAKANA-HIRAGANA DOUBLE HYPHEN U+30A0 Japanese and Ainu orthography (in Kana or Kanji script)

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • double hyphen — noun Date: 1893 a punctuation mark = used in place of a hyphen at the end of a line to indicate that the word so divided is normally hyphenated …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • double hyphen — noun : a punctuation mark  ̷ ̷ used in place of a hyphen at the end of a line to indicate that a word so divided is normally hyphenated …   Useful english dictionary

  • Double hyphen — Знак переноса слов, пишущихся через дефис …   Краткий толковый словарь по полиграфии

  • Double-barrelled name — In English speaking and some other Western countries, a double barrelled name is a family name with two parts, which may or may not be joined with a hyphen and is also known as a hyphenated name. An example of a hyphenated double barrelled… …   Wikipedia

  • Hyphen — This article is about the punctuation mark. For other uses, see Hyphen (disambiguation). Hyphen Punctuation …   Wikipedia

  • Double acute accent — ˝ Double acute accent Diacritics accent acute( …   Wikipedia

  • Double grave accent — ̏ Double grave accent Diacritics accent acute( …   Wikipedia

  • double-barrelled — ► ADJECTIVE 1) (of a gun) having two barrels. 2) Brit. (of a surname) having two parts joined by a hyphen …   English terms dictionary

  • double — adj., adv., n., & v. adj. 1 a consisting of two usu. equal parts or things; twofold. b consisting of two identical parts. 2 twice as much or many (double the amount; double the number; double thickness). 3 having twice the usual size, quantity,… …   Useful english dictionary

  • double-barrelled — (in AM, use double barreled) 1) ADJ: ADJ n A double barrelled gun has two barrels. ...a double barrelled shotgun. 2) ADJ: ADJ n A double barrelled surname has two parts which are joined by a hyphen, for example Miss J. Heydon Smith . [BRIT] 3)… …   English dictionary

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