Why should dashes be used carefully and sparingly?

Question

A. Dashes highlight material in a sentence.

 

B. Dashes indicate hesitations in speech.

 

C. Dashes are rather informal and can cause abrupt breaks in reading.

 

D. Dashes can be misinterpreted.

Answer 1

Well, highlights in speech are usually made by underlining, bolding, or italicizing words, but never with hyphens.  Hesitations in speech are usually indicated by commas or semicolons.  There really isn't much that a dash can be misinterpreted for.  So once you've eliminated those, you have your answer.