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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 (-)

#321

Post by MindBeams »

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…

"Much" and "many" are not interchangeable:

"I have too many water in the cup."

"How much people are in attendance?"

These sound obviously incorrect.

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

#322

Post by alabastervlog »

abyssin wrote: post #278
alabastervlog wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been employing em-dashes extensively since I went on a JD Salinger binge circa 2002. Also, "incidentally", for the same reason. I use "Nb" a lot, from reading a bunch of DFW years ago. Oh, and that very-precise construction he does with "which" all the time, I stole that. Before LLMs, I think em-dashes mostly signaled that you read books and paid attention to details, to the extent they signaled anything.

What is this very precise construction?

Something like, “the monks wore brown habits, which habits were made from wool”.

The slight ambiguity if you don’t do that now irks me, having seen a way to eliminate it.

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

#323

Post by MindBeams »

milesrout wrote: post #266
handoflixue wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> etc, actually it's "etc." (I wouldn't usually be a pedant, but if you think the difference between "--" and "—" matters, you should probably try to get the basics right too.)

Wrong. Look at any dictionary. Etc is completely fine. What next, are you going to pretend you write N.A.S.A. or Mr. White? Come on

>Mr. White

As opposed to what, exactly?

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

#325

Post by simondotau »

scelerat wrote: post #215
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #3

AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: -- Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.

The Mac has had them as part of the standard keyboard layout since 1984. Using Apple kit since then, they have long been burned into my muscle memory: option-[-] for en dash – shift-option-[-] for em dash —

The option key is IMHO the most underrated feature of the Mac platform. Having another modifier for character input is insanely handy, and I know where to find numerous characters like trademark™, divide (÷), pound (£), degrees (°), pi (π) and so on.

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

#326

Post by MindBeams »

bangaladore wrote: post #123
pavlov wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s largely the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. You’ve started noticing it because you just learned about it.

I feel this is an broad oversimplification. When looking at the context of a given text, use of certain words or punctuation, can very well indicate AI use. The "original" example was delve. There is no doubt that AI (did, or still does) use this word at a significantly higher frequency than the average person. I would say the same about em dashes. When browsing a Reddit thread about a video game, if you encounter nu…

It sucks that people understanding their own language marks them as possibly AI.

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

#327

Post by account42 »

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!

Have you heard of "to"?

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

#328

Post by globnomulous »

Daneel_ wrote: post #249
rahimnathwani wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until ~10 years ago, I used to type two spaces after a period.

I still do, and I maintain that it’s easier to read text with double spaces after periods.

I used to feel similarly. Now I find the double space a visual distraction that doesn't in any way improve readability.

The effect of the double space is, I suspect, a product of the reader's expectations: if you expect it, its absence creates mental work, detracting from readability; if you don't expect it, its presence is what creates mental work.

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

#329

Post by lxgr »

Propelloni wrote: post #290
lxgr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? One is the only way to approximate an en or em dash on a typewriter or in a charset that doesn’t have one, the other seems like a workaround of a typesetting bug at best.

-, --, --- is, IIRC, how it is done in LaTex and would be exceedingly simple to do on a typewriter. That being said, to break up sentences I use " -- " because I think it looks nicer than "---". I'll go now ;)

LaTeX is a markup language though, not ASCII art. I can get behind two dashes as a substitute if no en dash is available, but three seems too much and looks like halfway to a horizontal line to me ;)

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

#330

Post by MindBeams »

Anon1096 wrote: post #210
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…

This level of thinly veiled insecurity is just projection on your part.
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