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RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

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Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

#71

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

JCattheATM wrote: post #65
orthogonal_cube wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't this what parenthesizes are meant for? Parentheses add emphasis to a sentence or statement. Normally the use of it allows the sentence to be complete with or without it. Em dashes may also add or increase emphasis but are normally treated as an aside. Think of it as a comment by the author to inject themselves, sometimes in ways which do not form a complete sentence. For example: When you read this sentence (…

> Em dashes may also add or increase emphasis but are normally treated as an aside. Think of it as a comment by the author to inject themselves, sometimes in ways which do not form a complete sentence. A semicolon is better for this purpose. Good writing doesn't have mad tangents anyway, there should be a flow and natural transition.

A semicolon is for separating list items that follow a colon

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

#72

Post by gavinray »

embedding-shape wrote: post #28
orthogonal_cube wrote: post #21

> Historically, the em dash (—) has served as a flexible punctuation mark used by human authors to indicate interruption, emphasis, or sudden changes in thought. I learned about the em dash in high school and adapted it to my writing style very quickly for analysis and opinion documents. It felt natural given the amount of tangents I can go off into, particularly when including analogies for the reader’s understandin…

> I learned about the em dash in high school and adapted it to my writing style very quickly for analysis and opinion documents. It felt natural given the amount of tangents I can go off into, particularly when including analogies for the reader’s understanding. Isn't this what parenthesizes are meant for? Together with footnotes, I've always used them like that, but I guess it could also be just a cultural differenc…

Parenthesis are for "taking a small detour from the current thought", either to add context or personal thoughts.

I use em-dash (written as "--" because I don't have an emdash key on my keyboard) as punctuation that sits between a semicolon and a period.

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

#73

Post by pavon »

dudu24 wrote: post #63

Hot take: I think the em-dash is just lazy punctuation that can be replaced by the more nuanced pauses, i.e. the comma, semicolon, and colon. I think its popularity stems from people being confused on how to use a semicolon.

Yeah. My problem with the em-dash is that it has too many uses (parenthetical statements, independent clause, verbal pauses) and as a reader you don't always know which one is intended until after you've read a bit past the em-dash, and might need to go back and reread the sentence once you figure out how it is supposed to be parsed. Use of semicolon and parenthesis are much clearer in contrast. The comma has the same problem to some extent. I would be happy if we could settle on consistently replacing some specific uses of comma with em-dash to make writing less ambiguous, but in the real world I find it clearer to just avoid the em-dash all around.

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

#74

Post by garciansmith »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #71
JCattheATM wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Em dashes may also add or increase emphasis but are normally treated as an aside. Think of it as a comment by the author to inject themselves, sometimes in ways which do not form a complete sentence. A semicolon is better for this purpose. Good writing doesn't have mad tangents anyway, there should be a flow and natural transition.

A semicolon is for separating list items that follow a colon

Semicolons have more than one use.

"In regular prose, a semicolon is most commonly used between two independent clauses not joined by a conjunction to signal a closer connection between them than a period would." Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition, 407.

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

#77

Post by wpollock »

orthogonal_cube wrote: post #53
diogocp wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find myself on the fence with proposals like these. They have good intentions but they do not solve an issue at its core. It's clearly a joke à la RFC 3514.

I couldn’t tell. I struggle with such subtleties. I probably should’ve checked ‘454545’ in the ascii table. Seeing how it translates to ‘---‘ could’ve hinted towards that, but the clever use probably would’ve been applauded instead without thinking it was a joke. Ah well. Egg on my face I suppose.

RFCs have four digit numbers. This will likely change within a month or so; RFC 9945 was recently assigned so it won't be long. I wonder what RFC9999 and RFC10000 will be?

Re: RFC 454545 – Human Em Dash Standard

#78

Post by xattt »

gavinray wrote: post #72
embedding-shape wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I learned about the em dash in high school and adapted it to my writing style very quickly for analysis and opinion documents. It felt natural given the amount of tangents I can go off into, particularly when including analogies for the reader’s understanding. Isn't this what parenthesizes are meant for? Together with footnotes, I've always used them like that, but I guess it could also be just a cultural differenc…

Parenthesis are for "taking a small detour from the current thought", either to add context or personal thoughts. I use em-dash (written as "--" because I don't have an emdash key on my keyboard) as punctuation that sits between a semicolon and a period.

It depends on the goal of your writing. You can usually set off the same thought with a comma or a semicolon depending on sentence structure.

You can also just avoid the whole rigamarole and have a separate explanatory sentence.

Times change, good writers adapt.

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