Derived from the Germanic “teran” (“to tear) and the Latin “gyrare” (“to turn”), the “dash” is a common punctuation mark in French.
We can read in the first edition of the
Dictionary of the French Academy
(1694) that it is said at the origin of a small piece of parchment cut in length and twisted, being used to thread and to attach papers together.
But it is in the sense, specified by
Grevisse
in 1936, that the “dash” is understood.
His role?
Indicate a change of interlocutor in a dialog.
Also, we read in
Les Chouans
(1829) by Honoré de Balzac:
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“- Is the citizen of Gua Saint-Cyr here? said a peasant as he entered.
- What do you want with him? replied the young man, advancing.
Note that the sentence following the hyphen always begins with a capital letter, except when the character ends an uninterrupted sentence higher up and resumes it after an ellipsis:
"The artillery will be there soon," said the officer. We will end these things...
He pointed to the armored train, stranded in the sun.
- … ourselves. Can you hand over the troops tomorrow night?”
(André Malraux,
The Human Condition
, 1933).
But that is not its only use.
Outline and conclusion
As Jacques Drillon points out in his
Treatise on French Punctuation
(Gallimard), the hyphen is placed before and after a proposition, a phrase, an expression or a word, which we want to separate from the context to highlight them.
In other words, like the parenthesis or the comma.
But then the hyphen further interrupts the continuity of the sentence.
Example:
"The man who is there in front of her, whose breath she already feels on her neck, is the only one from whom - even to save her life - she would not want to flee" (Georges Bernanos, Nouvelle histoire
de
Mouchette
, 1937).
We also observe the punctuation mark after a comma, as if we felt that this indicated too little of the desired separation.
Read alsoDo you know how to use the semicolon?
Modern authors devoted a special cult to the dash.
Some of them, Paul Valéry in particular, even use it to announce a conclusion, a summary, new light, or a sudden contradiction.
In
Tel quel
(1943), the academician writes:
“The work of the mind is considered as the painful substitute for sleep (since the solution comes while sleeping, according to many authors).
- Sleep and you will find.”
However, be careful not to confuse this precious sign with the hyphen, which is found in compound words, or the little dash.
The one that is placed at the end of the line when a word is not finished.
