101–110 of 219 posts
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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.
Multiple hyphens are awful — learn to use your compose key!
Tip: On a Mac, you can type an em-dash with shift-option-hyphen. (An en-dash is just option-hyphen.)
Thanks, I have been looking for that. But it's command-hyphen for en-dash, and shift-command-hyphen for em-dash on my Mac.
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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?
Exactly. "I live in the U.S. I am happy." requires a bit more cognitive work to parse if spaces after sentence-ending periods are not wider. EDIT: For completeness, here is that same text with an extra space: "I live in the U.S. I am happy." -- see how much easier that is to read? Sure, it's not that big a deal, but it's definitely kind to the reader.
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http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html
Yeah? So? First, it does not say that one must not use spaces around em dashes. Second, so what if it did? This is English we're talking about. The main rule of English is that there are no rules. If you want a rule for English: it's to speak and write in such a way as to be understood -- who would fail to understand the whitespace around an em dash?! Not I. But missing whitespace around an em dash can be confusing -…
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Yeah? So? First, it does not say that one must not use spaces around em dashes. Second, so what if it did? This is English we're talking about. The main rule of English is that there are no rules. If you want a rule for English: it's to speak and write in such a way as to be understood -- who would fail to understand the whitespace around an em dash?! Not I. But missing whitespace around an em dash can be confusing -…
You can do it. Unless you have an editor, nobody is going to stop you. It just looks awkward and pretentious to anyone with knowledge of typographic conventions (as in pretending hard to be fancy while revealing your ignorance of standard practice.) It’s like using obscure words in an ungrammatical or unidiomatic way; again nobody but your editor is going to stop you, but anyone who knows the way those words are typi…
I personally wrap them in thin spaces (U+2009), except in fixed‐width fonts, where I use an en dash with full spaces instead.
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Follow-up tip: also on a Mac, go to System Preferences → Keyboard and check “Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar”. Then, hit the icon just added to the menu bar and select “Show Keyboard Viewer”. With it open, hold down Option, Option+Shift, etc, to live-preview what will be typed. For symbols not there, hit Control+Command+Space to open the emoji/unicode typer. Hit the icon in the upper right to switch to a…
Personally I’m a big fan of the compose key for such matters. (Both OS X and Linux.) The mnemonics I find easier to remember. • Compose . . → … • Compose " → “ and ” • Compose ' → ‘ and ’ • Compose / = → ≠ • Compose + - → ± • (couldn't figure out ≈) • Compose • Compose > = → ≥ • Compose o o → ° • (no compose for π)
You can create your own compose sequences in ~/.XCompose. I mapped pi to Compose * p, taking the idea from Plan 9: https://9fans.github.io/plan9port/man/man7/keyboard.html
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Multiple hyphens are awful — learn to use your compose key!
I like sticking to ASCII when I stick to English. (Of course, when I write in other languages, I use UTF-8.)
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…
The em dash is the most beautiful punctuation mark, all the more because it is rare --- and it is best kept that way. Certainly a sentence with more than two is imparsible. In fact, more than a few in a whole article is probably getting annoying. It's like the exclamation point in that way. Once you discover the em dash, it is hard to restrain yourself. But I'm trying to come back to the comma. It does its work witho…
This space is not needed.
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You can do it. Unless you have an editor, nobody is going to stop you. It just looks awkward and pretentious to anyone with knowledge of typographic conventions (as in pretending hard to be fancy while revealing your ignorance of standard practice.) It’s like using obscure words in an ungrammatical or unidiomatic way; again nobody but your editor is going to stop you, but anyone who knows the way those words are typi…
Pretentious? Come on. There’s nothing inherently wrong with spacing your em dashes. It’s even part of the AP style guide. I personally wrap them in thin spaces (U+2009), except in fixed‐width fonts, where I use an en dash with full spaces instead.