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hijklmno
ANSWERS: 2
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You could go crazy trying to explain all the eccentricites of creative types. Ever read what Gertrude Stein said about the comma? And don't get me started on e. e. cummings! A dash works just fine for making a pause in a phrase, which is what a comma would do as well, but not as distinctively. It doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it is an interesting question to think about - Thanks!
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"Why does Emily Dickinson use the dash? - To indicate interruption or abrupt shift in thought. - As a parenthetical device for emphasis. - As a substitute for the colon: introducing a list, series, or final appositive. - To keep a note of uncertainty or undecidability. Dashes are fluid and indicate incompletion, a way of being in uncertainty (like Keats's negative capability). Dashes mark without cutting off meaning. - The dash both joins sentences so that they have a boundary in common and resists that joining: it connects and separates. - Its traditional use is informal, and it is used often in women's writing: see, for example, Queen Victoria's letters or diaries. - It is a falling away, an indefinite rather than a definite end to a line. - Some critics have argued that the upward or downward movement of the dashes signifies elocutionary marks to guide readers on how the passage should be read or phrased." Source and further information: http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/common.html But I like also the answer of "Wide Awake Phoenix"!
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