Which sentence uses an elongated hyphen correctly?

Frank went skiing - snowboarding - tubing last winter.

Last weekend, Laurie applied for three jobs - at the mall. All three flavors - chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry - were sold out at the ice cream store.

Alex - and - Jan are celebrating their mother's birthday.

Question

English

Paloma Day

1 May, 05:34

Which sentence uses an elongated hyphen correctly?

Frank went skiing - snowboarding - tubing last winter.

Last weekend, Laurie applied for three jobs - at the mall. All three flavors - chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry - were sold out at the ice cream store.

Alex - and - Jan are celebrating their mother's birthday.

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Answers (1)

Know the Answer?

Hope Ayers · Answer 1

C. All three flavors - chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry - were sold out at the ice cream store.

Explanation:

Elongated hyphen is used to emphasize an extra information in the sentence.

This extra information usually changes the tone of the sentence or provides some details that are not crucial for understanding.

In most cases, elongated hyphen replaces commas, with the addition of giving more importance to that certain part of the sentence.

Answer A. shows a sequence of events, so it should use hyphen but not elongated one.

Answers B. and D. should not use hyphen at all.

Answer C. forms a complete and understandable information even without this hyphenated, extra part. However that part tells us information on what the flavors were, so instead of writing that in next sentence, we can add it here with appropriate use of hyphen.