Yes, there is a real difference between a hyphen vs. dash. And here's how these tiny marks can make a big difference in your writing.

the dash [which i write as space, hyphen-hyphen, space ], is a SEPARATOR. normally it is used pretty much to separate off a phrase -- sometimes in pairs, sorta substituting for parentheses.

Keyboard shortcuts: How to make a dash To make a dash on the keyboard, you use the key to the right of the zero, like you do for a hyphen, but it’s a little more complicated. Option-shift-hyphen ...

The dash and the hyphen are as different as the kiwi and the kiwi (the fruit and the animal). The hyphen (-) is used to hold two words or two parts of words together. The dash is used to add bonus … ...

Unlike periods and commas, em dashes aren’t integral to sentence structure; they’re a considered choice that can, but by no means have to, take the place of commas, parentheses and semicolons.

But the Dash aren't proper in a grammatical sense. The punctuation mark that joins the two names that identify the consolidated North Carolina city of roughly 250,000 isn't a dash. It's a hyphen.

A hyphen, you don't need any space around, an en dash, you don't need any space around. The em dash, some publications close up, The New Yorker doesn't put any space.