Reply to comment about "Kicking the em dash habit"

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Submitted by Our Languages blog on June 5, 2018, at 13:49

Hi Dennis,
We agree that readers who happen to be federal government employees should follow The Canadian Style for print documents and the Canada.ca Content Style Guide (which does not allow the use of any dashes) for content published online. Our many other readers can feel free to use either spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes, in print or online, as they wish. :)
You’re right that commas should not be used as a substitute for en dashes. But dashes can be used effectively in place of commas in cases where a more emphatic break is called for. Details can be found in the following articles:
• en dash (http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/wrtps-srch?lang=eng&srchtxt=en+dash&i=1...)
• em dash (http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/wrtps/index-eng.html?...)
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