ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour...

00:07

You may not have missed this passage, but it missed you. Hit pause and spend a minute or two with it.

00:20

What can be inferred from the frequent use of the dash in this passage?

00:25

And here are the potential answers...

00:31

Looking back over the passage, it's certainly true... there are more dashes here than at the Olympic games.

00:38

So to answer this one, we really just have to fall back on our understanding of punctuation

00:42

and literary devices.

00:44

What's the author's reason for packing this passage chock full of dashes?

00:51

Does he think they're visually appealing? Is his "period" key broken? Did the "Dash

00:55

Mafia" get to him? Nah. Dashes don't imply censoring, abridgment,

01:00

or unknown information.

01:02

They are used for one thing and one thing only -- to indicate an abrupt halt or transition in speech.

01:16

Looking over our five answer choices, B is the only one that fits the bill.

01:20

The moral of this question? Don't cut people off mid-sentence...

01:26

...or the Dash Mafia will come for you...

Full Transcript