Teacher Discussion Forums

I'm teaching in primary school and teaching numbers lately. However, I can't tell exactly dash from hyphen in this sentence : seven"-" seventeen. Could anybody give me a hand ? Thanks!

Surely primary school kids don't need to know the difference in name, use or even length of a dash and a hyphen (and I must admit that when I'm writing at least, as opposed to typing on a PC, I rarely think about the difference and just write "it" how I feel like as and when I need it); and seeing as you are teaching numbers (apparently using 'seven' as a "base" form for forming 'seventeen', jumping from the former to the latter), the "transition" is more oral/aural - the numbers needn't be linked on a page, and even if they are, they needn't use a dash or hyphen (what about dots ..... or an arrow -> ? Or white space, even!).

But in answer to your question I would imagine that a dash is more what you want to use (hyphens are more for where there is a close connection between the two words that needs to be signalled by a single (letter-sized) space that is filled with the hyphen e.g. a double-barrelled shotgun/surname; kind-hearted. Seven ー seventeen is more a chain, list, transition or progression than a cohesive unit linguistically (note the spaces either side of the dash there)).

dash (--): almost exactly acts like a comma, parenthesis, or ellipsis.

hyphen (-): used to connect to otherwise incomplete ideas or replace a preposition (in this case, seven to seventeen would be seven-seventeen. Not sure what other meaning you would be using it for.) Also, there are specific cases where the hyphen, such as with the age noun (40 year-old.)

regarding spaces, I've seen it both ways in different books, spaces after/before or not. I usually say spaces with dashes are optional, and must not be used with hyphens.

MS Word and most good programs will put in in automatically for you. Otherwise, a dash is made up of two hyphens.

I'm teaching the subject " What time is it ?" . And students always forget to put a "-" when they write a sentence such as " It's seven - seventeen. "
So, I have to remind them all the time never forget to put a dash/hyphen when writing this sentence. Thanks a lot !

Here in the real world, one would almost certainly use figures, not words to write down the time when expressed like that. It's certainly news to me that one should "never forget the hyphen".

Hmm...it would've been a lot clearer had you said you were teaching the time, rather than just 'numbers'; then I'd've simply just recommended you use a colon, much like a digital clock's display thus: 7:17.

I'd also like to point out that although that might seem a good way to practise numbers as well as telling the time (killing two birds with one stone), it might help the students more to realize than telling the time right down to the minute is not really an essential skill in most people's lives: watches can be a bit fast or slow, and anyone who asks for the time will settle for 'It's about 7:15/7:20' (that is, teach how to be approximate and round numbers up or down to the nearest, say, 5).

Add the '17...no wait...18 minutes...and...17 seconds' to worrying about which punctuaton to use (and I have to say I agree with lolwhites that the hyphen is surely the wrong choice) and you have a bit of a picky lesson if you ask me.