RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard • Hacker News Board

Post by 7bit » Thu, Mar 12, 2026, 9:27 AM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #35

PTOB wrote: post #23

Two of the things I love intersect here: good punctuation and engineering documents. AI stole the em-dash from my toolkit. I have memorized a group of useful Alt-codes for engineering documents. They include symbols for diameter, delta, degrees, dot product, and trademark among others. If you're of a certain age, you will remember how useful Alt+255 was for folder naming. At the cusp of the 21st centuries, I added th…

never understood why -- => em-dash auto completion is only a think in some subset of application instead of being a standard behavior for (display) text inputs

Because the EM Dash is not universally used. In Germany we use the EN Dash. That's also why the proposal is dumb. It has the typical US-centric view you would expect from a typical American.

Post by JCattheATM » Thu, Mar 12, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

monodeldiablo wrote: post #130

JCattheATM wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You and Kurt Vonnegut seem to disagree here. He made liberal use of em dashes and hated semicolons. Got some samples you would care to share? I'm skeptical we disagree, honestly. One can have preferences for different writing styles, and write in a way that works with preferred punctuation rather than against it. > The problem with your definition of "good writing" is that it's entirely subjective. I disagree. Subj…

His word choice about semicolons is problematic for other reasons, so I won't quote it here, but Vonnegut made his views on punctuation and story structure very known. An internet search will provide it to you readily. And anybody who's read his works is familiar with his love of the em dash. But more to his -- and my -- point: He also regularly encouraged people to flout rules and standards. His famous quote about s…

> An internet search will provide it to you readily.

I'm not interested in doing the work to support your point for you.

> Your point about Citizen Kane and Independence Day 2 is nonsensical, and presumes we all have the same goals when consuming entertainment. I'm not going to engage in that argument.

It's not nonsensical at all, makes no presumptions and makes the point perfectly. You don't want to engage because you are unable to do so, which is absolutely fine.

RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard