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I am reading an article by Bill Keller (The Times). He wrote:

Through the years, The New York Times’s coverage of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican has received sharp criticism from practicing Catholics — including the past eight years that Bill Keller has been the paper’s executive editor.

Why has he used a hyphen (-)?

tchrist
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Salman Virk
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1 Answers1

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It's not a hyphen, it's an n-dash, used to indicate that the following text is closely connected to the earlier text, and adds something that cannot be added to the sentence directly.

Look up "n-dash" for full details of its usage.

Mark Wallace
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  • Usually written as "en dash." – phenry Jul 13 '11 at 22:26
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    Strictly speaking, he should really be using an em-dash and not an en-dash for this. The em-dash is longer. – Peter Shor Jul 14 '11 at 00:14
  • I wouldn't use an m-dash, but that's largely personal preference, because using spaced n-dashes makes the text easier on the eye, and therefore easier to read. Note that using an m-dash would be for personal preference, too -- neither usage is either wrong or more correct than the other. – Mark Wallace Jul 14 '11 at 05:06