Dash – and Em-dash

It seems to me that their use is up on the internet – more so by those whom have a higher education. I am guilty of this myself; however, I was only really cognizant of this when a former colleague friended me on Facebook.

My friend with whom was always a pleasure to work is of the Baby-Boomer (also read my parent's) generation and has never been too keen on the technology upswing in recent times. It was to my delight to see that he has embraced the Facebook vortex.

He is brand-new to the social networking site, and I think I was his third or fourth friend on the page. When he accepted my friendship, I stopped over to his profile to say hi. I noticed that another former colleague had posted on his wall too – with about the same reaction as me – wow! In response, the Facebook newbie typed up no less than 3 "-"s.

And I wondered –

Here is someone who is well educated, was a teacher and storyteller, and writes often. While working together we'd embark in debates with semantics and syntax; often we would forward jokes to each other only the linguistically inclined could laugh at. Now, in this informal setting he was using the dash.

He is not the first, and I know not the last. I am guilty of it myself and I continue to catch myself using it – many times to replace a period or ellipsis. Yet, as I type it onto the screen I ask myself – where/when did this all happen? I remember not doing it, and I remember being acutely aware that I was doing it.

I began to look at my friends' social networking pages and posts. Since I became more aware of it, I see more and more people doing it.

I have my college degree and a passion for language. The friend from whom I suspect I picked up this new typological trait does it ALL of the time. She has her degree, also in education I believe.

Is there a connection?

- I can't help but to wonder yes. Yet today (day 2), I took out of my stack s of leftover college books Little Brown's Grammar Book – or something of the sorts ( I will update with proper citation when I cite). I feel the need to delve into this much, much further. The differences and purposes of each, plus the present day use of each in formal/informal writing, and the result of the two reasonings I hope to comment later upon.

- Do you find your finger traveling up to the right of zero often? Under what circumstances?