Regarding the Em Dash

Post by gnicholas » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:06 AM UTC

jasoncrawford wrote: post #3

Tip: On a Mac, you can type an em-dash with shift-option-hyphen. (An en-dash is just option-hyphen.)

Post by pash » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:16 AM UTC

combatentropy wrote: post #81

pash wrote: post #77

The em-dash is like the AK-47: it feels good in one’s own hand, but one is distressed to find it everywhere one looks. If you find yourself wielding either often, you should stop and ask yourself: “Am I the bad guy?” Just minutes ago I read two articles demonstrating the horror of a world awash in em-dashes, both in The New York Times [0, 1]. One may empathize with the writers, if one is so inclined: they have employ…

Midsentence injection deserves its own thread. Is it a trend, or am I just noticing it more? It's hard on the brain, because you have to hold the first part of the sentence in memory while you take in the interruption. Your example is great, the one about the security vulnerability. Your revisions are much better in all cases. It's actually my first impulse to inject these midsentence clauses. Is it because of a shor…

Post by cryptonector » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:25 AM UTC

seandougall wrote: post #64

cryptonector wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two hyphens is plenty. Three is calling attention to it. One is pitiful. While we're on this subject, wide spacing between sentence-ending periods and the next sentence is the Right Way (tm). In ASCII that's two spaces. We're not animals. Let's behave accordingly.

> While we're on this subject, wide spacing between sentence-ending periods and the next sentence is the Right Way (tm). This convention started with typewriters, and typesetters (e.g. my parents) will tell you that it is only considered correct in monospace fonts. This is also why HTML takes the liberty of reducing whitespace down to a single space character unless you go out of your way to use an  .

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:26 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #80

seandougall wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While we're on this subject, wide spacing between sentence-ending periods and the next sentence is the Right Way (tm). This convention started with typewriters, and typesetters (e.g. my parents) will tell you that it is only considered correct in monospace fonts. This is also why HTML takes the liberty of reducing whitespace down to a single space character unless you go out of your way to use an  .

But what of sentences that end with an abbreviation that ends in a period, like "U.S."? If it's just one space after a period, it's impossible to know that the sentence has ended? I realize in books or published articles this can be typeset in a smart way to make it distinguishable, but what about in ordinary writing?

Post by cryptonector » Sun, Jan 07, 2018, 6:29 AM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #80

seandougall wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While we're on this subject, wide spacing between sentence-ending periods and the next sentence is the Right Way (tm). This convention started with typewriters, and typesetters (e.g. my parents) will tell you that it is only considered correct in monospace fonts. This is also why HTML takes the liberty of reducing whitespace down to a single space character unless you go out of your way to use an  .

But what of sentences that end with an abbreviation that ends in a period, like "U.S."? If it's just one space after a period, it's impossible to know that the sentence has ended? I realize in books or published articles this can be typeset in a smart way to make it distinguishable, but what about in ordinary writing?