Vive la dash!

It amazes me how many people do not know the difference between, or haven't even heard of, 'en-dashes' or 'em-dashes'. I too am guilty of not knowing about these until I studied at university. I find it is such a shame that these important punctuation symbols are not taught in school. I often wonder if I'm in the distinct minority of people who cringe when they see the wrong dash being used; it really is something which grinds my gears. All too often I find that a hyphen has been used because of the reason that, "the small dashes look better!" When, in fact, the bottom line is what the grammar police would have to say about it. If it were down to aesthetics, you could argue that one may prefer the word 'shit' over the word 'shirt', simply because the negative space between the 'r' and the 't' is somewhat uncomfortable at times. The point would still remain that a 'shit' and a 'shirt' are very much two different things. Likewise, a 'hyphen', an 'en-dash', and an 'em-dash' all mean different things and therefore should be respected and used for the purpose in which they were created. So I say, bring back the correct use of each dash and celebrate how they enhance our written language!