Hyphens, ellipses, and word counts

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According to reliable style manuals (I’ve cited four at the bottom of this post), writers should use the en dash, not the hyphen, for number spans.

  • With a hyphen (wrong): 343-44
  • With an en dash (right): 343–44

I don’t know if you can see the difference, but the en dash, the correct mark, is longer than the hyphen. Although I agree with the rule, I’ve recently learned something that could affect your choice of horizontal mark.

  • With a hyphen, Microsoft Word counts this as one word: 343-44
  • With an en dash, it counts it as two: 343–44

You get a 50% savings with the hyphen. In a lengthy brief subject to a word count, you could save some words by using the hyphen.

But wait. There’s more.

Do you know the difference between the ellipsis symbol (…) and the Bluebook ellipsis (. . .), which is just three periods with spaces? For example:

  • Bluebook: The court . . . concluded
  • Ellipsis symbol: The court … concluded

In Typography for Lawyers (cited below), Matthew Butterick recommends the ellipsis symbol. You probably never gave it much thought, but check the word counts:

  • With periods and spaces, Word counts this as six words: The court . . . concluded
  • With the ellipsis symbol, it counts it as four: The court … concluded

You save two words every time you use the symbol instead of periods and spaces.

A former student alerted me to these two strange word-count anomalies and said, “On my last brief to the Seventh Circuit, these two tips cut off close to 200 words, and I ended up 119 words under the limit.”

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  • Bryan A. Garner, The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style § 8.13 (3d ed. 2013).
  • Joan Ames Magat, The Lawyer’s Editing Manual 43 (2008)
  • Chicago Manual of Style § 6.78 (16th ed. 2010)
  • Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers 49, 53-54 (2010)