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How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

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Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#201

Post by milesrout »

jeroenhd wrote: post #193
Starlevel004 wrote: post #91

I refuse to care about this. A single dash is all I will ever use. I see no possible reason to use the other two.

I take this advice like "do not use a preposition to end a sentence with" and "pay close attention to 'much' and 'many'". Personal preferences from the 1800s taken as gospel by grammatical extremists, to the point where they're taken as some kind of solid rule in a vain attempt to forcefully shape language to a personal preference. There are cases when you want to follow certain guidelines, for sure. If you write for…

Ending sentences with prepositions is and had always been fine. It has never been a serious rule of grammar that you may not end a sentence with a preposition. It does sometimes make a sentence sound better to rewrite it so that it doesn't end with one though. For example, "do not use a preposition to end a sentence with" sounds awkward to my ears, probably because you deliberately crafted the sentence to end with a preposition even though that is not naturally what you'd end that sentence with. (The previous sentence doesn't sound awkward to me, interestingly.)

Getting "much" and "many" right is completely different. They mean different things. Confusing them makes you sound stupid. Less vs fewer is the same. It often doesn't matter but in some cases it really grates on the ears (eg "there wasnt much people there" just sounds awful).

Dashes are not in the same category. They are orthographical conventions. They aren't really grammar. They are more like spelling. You can spell things wrong and say it doesn't matter because spelling is arbitrary and you can use the wrong dashes too, but it makes you look either uncaring or ignorant. If you want to give a good first impression, learn the basic conventions of written English and follow them.

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#202

Post by milesrout »

efilife wrote: post #140
o11c wrote: post #80

One point that is very rarely mentioned is how to place em dashes around quotations marks. If the em dash indicates an interruption (not a planned pause) of the actual speech, the em dashes go inside the quotes (often just one, before the closing quote). If the em dash is the narrator interjecting with additional information, the em dashes go outside the quotes. Besides this, the question of where to put spaces when…

this is the definiton of bikeshedding

No it isn't.

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#204

Post by milesrout »

jimnotgym wrote: post #18
perihelions wrote: post #2

Dupe— https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43447819 ( "How to use an en-dash and em-dash correctly?" , 43 comments)

More interestingly it is the same highly niche subject from two different websites in two days. HN is...different

This isn't niche, it is the sort of thing every child used to have drilled into them in primary school.

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#205

Post by mproud »

mmooss wrote: post #142

Here's an easy, if not always precise way to remember: * Hyphens connect things, such as compound words: double-decker , cut-and-dried , 212-555-5555 . * EN dashes make a range between things: Boston–San Francisco flight, 10–20 years: both connect not only the endpoints, but define that all the space between is included. (Compare the last usage with the phone number example under Hyphens.) * EM dashes break things, s…

A Figure Dash is perfect for phone numbers (especially when working with tabular numbers).

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#206

Post by mproud »

divbzero wrote: post #160
mmooss wrote: post #142

Here's an easy, if not always precise way to remember: * Hyphens connect things, such as compound words: double-decker , cut-and-dried , 212-555-5555 . * EN dashes make a range between things: Boston–San Francisco flight, 10–20 years: both connect not only the endpoints, but define that all the space between is included. (Compare the last usage with the phone number example under Hyphens.) * EM dashes break things, s…

I prefer the dedicated minus (U+2212) over the hyphen-minus (U+002d) for mathematical use because they look different in most font faces. Are there cases where the dedicated hyphen (U+2010) is preferred over the hyphen-minus?

A regular hyphen arguably looks better when used as a hyphen and not a minus.

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#207

Post by mvdtnz »

california-og wrote: post #183
theelous3 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwing my hat in here. The sub millimeter difference in the length of a dash conveys no additional meaning or clarity. It is impossible to argue me out of this position. It's not like you can reliably write these consistently by hand either without going over the top in length to make it extremely obvious.

Here's some examples where the en dash could make things more clear: -5--2°C post-war-pre-digital era See sections 10-O-15-Q Try Our New York-London Flight Connection!

-5°C to -2°C

post-war - pre-digital era (not a sentence any sane person would use anyway).

See sections 10-O - 15-Q

Try our New York-London flight connection! (no kind of dash clears this one up without fixing capitalisation).

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#208

Post by mvdtnz »

milesrout wrote: post #198
Starlevel004 wrote: post #91

I refuse to care about this. A single dash is all I will ever use. I see no possible reason to use the other two.

i refuse to care about this lowercase letters are all i will ever use i see no possible reason to use the other symbols Suit yourself, but if you refuse to learn basic grammar you will be treated like you are stupid and uneducated. Like it or not, presentation matters. Getting the basics right, including things like spelling, grammar, etc, shows a basic attention to detail without which your services will likely do m…

The various dashes are not "basic grammar" they are for pedants to argue amongst one another while the rest of the world just gets thing done.

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#209

Post by california-og »

mvdtnz wrote: post #207
california-og wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some examples where the en dash could make things more clear: -5--2°C post-war-pre-digital era See sections 10-O-15-Q Try Our New York-London Flight Connection!

-5°C to -2°C post-war - pre-digital era (not a sentence any sane person would use anyway). See sections 10-O - 15-Q Try our New York-London flight connection! (no kind of dash clears this one up without fixing capitalisation).

The last one was a gotcha: it's their newly established York–London flight!

Try Our New York–London Flight Connection.

Or if it was New York:

Try Our New York – London Flight Connection.

Note the additional spaces. Agree on the capitalization though.

Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

#210

Post by Anon1096 »

bangaladore wrote: post #26

Somewhat off topic, however, I'm thoroughly convinced that there is a very high probability something is AI generated when I see Em dashes. Anyone else noticing this? ChatGPT for example almost always uses them. I'm sure they are more common in academic writing, but its now super common on boards like Reddit.

The only people still using em-dashes are those who think it's somehow a signal of high intellect rather than being (extremely) behind the times. Case in point: this exact comment section where you see it with ~10000x the frequency of standard human writing, or even the average HN thread.

Just makes me roll my eyes really seeing a human use an em-dash. We've in the age of informality, and at least for me personally I've definitely filed the em-dash away as "a near guarantee the text was written by a machine". No matter how much and perhaps especially because HN commentators are coming out of the woodworks to insist they've been using it daily for years.

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