The High-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has gone by the nickname Dash since 2009. It’s an homage to the piece of punctuation that unites the two towns that have been officially merged as one since the late 1800s.
The problem is, grammar nerds (of which I am very much one) will tell you that dashes do not conjoin two words—hyphens do. Grammar enthusiasts will be happy to pontificate on the differences between hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes and their various lengths and purposes.
Okay, since you asked, en dashes, the width of the letter n, indicate a range, like 2009–2023. Em dashes, the width of the letter m, separate or emphasize text—like this. Hyphens, and only hyphens, connect two words. (I wrote about this back in the Story Behind the Nickname article about the Winston-Salem Dash on this site back in 2015.)
Eight years after we brought this critical issue to the team’s attention, the Dash will make things right. Per the team’s social media:
“The City of Winston-Salem and literary scholars have spoken. For one game this season the Dash will be grammatically correct and play as the Winston-Salem Hyphens!”
And I might add, kudos to the team for correctly not hyphenating the adverb-adjective pairing “grammatically correct” in their announcement.
The Hyphens will play May 6 as part of Salute to Winston-Salem night.
