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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 (-)

#311

Post by 7bit »

sandbach wrote: post #23

Robert Bringhurst¹ prefers the en dash in the context of setting off phrases: "The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography. "Used as a phrase marker – thus – the en dash is set with a normal…

That's how you use them in Germany. N-dash with spaces around, instead of an m-dash, as Americans do.

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

#312

Post by psychoslave »

nlitened wrote: post #301
psychoslave wrote: post #298

If you are looking for alternative to kebab case to write identifier in programming language which reserve the - (U+002d) as an operator, chances are good you can use · (U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT), that we use in middot case . So isMorePleasantToRead, is_more_pleasant_to_read or is·more·pleasant·to·read is up to you.

But how pleasant is it to write?

On the bépo layout that I use, extremely well, as it sits between ’ (U+2019 ’ RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK) and ‑ (U+2011 ‑ NON-BREAKING HYPHEN), each being generated by altgr+shift and x . and k (which are all on the opposite side of the keyboard compared to altgr key).

At least from the point of view of digital gymnastic, it’s not really any worst than camel or snake cases, though direct access to dash could be said to give a small facilitation for input in kebab case.

So it really depends on the keyboard layout used (or whatever input device facility is used). What’s you favorite input method lately? Does it really doesn’t provide a convenient way to input more than ASCII visible glyphs?

Plus, let’s be honest, identifiers are generally written in full expanse only once, then autocompletion is going to do it for us. And we all know we spend more time reading identifiers than declaring new ones.

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

#313

Post by voidUpdate »

california-og wrote: post #209
mvdtnz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-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.

York doesn't have an active airport

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

#314

Post by darajava »

grey413 wrote: post #295
darajava wrote: post #149

Most people don't use the em dash. It's too hard to type and looks too similar to a hyphen. As a result, a hallmark of GPT-generated text is its (over)using of the em dash--I have stopped using it for this reason an just use two hyphens now instead.

Most people don't use em dashes... apart from professional and skilled writers, who use them regularly. It's a bit of a problem that the same character is both a mark of LLMs and skilled writing.

Yes, true! I was tired when I clumsily made that point above (I am not a skilled writer).

I learned how to use the em dash properly about 6 months before the release of ChatGPT and then when it was released I realized that it used them all the time. So, to convince people that I both know basic grammar and I am human I started to use "--" instead of "—".

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

#315

Post by op00to »

lxgr wrote: post #163
op00to wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My LLM prompts all have “don’t use em dashes or semicolons ever” when I send the output to someone else. ;)

I get not using em/en dashes, but semicolons don't really have an alternative in many cases (other than rephrasing), do they?

Usually I split it into two sentences, but yes. I don’t really see semicolons used in most business communications, so I treat them as a tell that the text was generated by LLM. Maybe I’m over reacting and prejudiced against semicolon usage.

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

#316

Post by thomasjb »

psychoslave wrote: post #298

If you are looking for alternative to kebab case to write identifier in programming language which reserve the - (U+002d) as an operator, chances are good you can use · (U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT), that we use in middot case . So isMorePleasantToRead, is_more_pleasant_to_read or is·more·pleasant·to·read is up to you.

This is intriguing to me, do you know which (programming) languages tolerate this?

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

#317

Post by zajio1am »

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?

Visual style of hyphen-minus depends on font. Some fonts displays it more like a minus, others like a hyphen. So if you care about distinguishing hyphen and minus, it makes sense to use dedicated hyphen and minus, and do not use hyphen-minus at all.

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

#319

Post by armedgorilla »

mmooss wrote: post #245
phlakaton wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emily Dickinson wept—

Ha, good point, and an interesting question: What kinds of dashes did Dickinson intend? It's a hard one to answer: We could look at published Emily Dickinson books from the time, but did Dickinson really pay that close attention to or have that much control over the type? We could look at Dickinson's actual personal documents, but if they were handewritten, distinguishing dashes could be difficult even if there was i…

Fortunately we have troves of her handwritten documents; all of her poems were first printed posthumously. To me, she's using the punctuation as pacing or tonal markers as opposed to ligatures ("I'll clutch— and clutch— " vs "I'll clutch-and clutch-"). Many publishers style these marks as longer than normal m-dashes for that reason, which makes sense seeing as they are rarely used as asides.

I interpret her marks—

as breathless pauses—

that— having no unicode—

should be given to m—

and space—

https://www.edickinson.org/editions/2/image_sets/12170035

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

#320

Post by MindBeams »

theelous3 wrote: post #104
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.

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.

This sort of anti-intellectualism is the perfect antidote for those who claim that improper grammar is nothing more than evidence of language "evolving."
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