I don't like en-dash
Brunhilda wrote on 18 Feb 2010 22:42
As I already said, I have two hyphens all over my site which show as em-dashes (and I am sure I am not the only one). Therefore, if you change the syntax for em-dash from two hyphens to three hyphens, this means that I will get a bunch of en-dashes instead of em-dashes, which then means that I will have to go through all my texts and change two dashes with three dashes — manually! I have about 400 texts, and 400 picture pages that contain many, many em-dashes. So, if you really, really want (and need) to make my life hell and my work and work of my colleagues in vain, just go for it. I have nothing more to say. Thank you for reading this.
Comments: 6
page revision: 1, last edited: 18 Feb 2010 22:44
Just a thought. Aren't en-dashes and hyphens analogous enough to be used for the same purpose? The en-dash is only a pixel wider, practically indistinguishable.
Timothy Foster - @tfAuroratide
Auroratide.com - Go here if you're nerdy like me
I feel similarly with you Timothy — I like everything about Pieter's design, but instead of having en-dashes, just retain em-dashes with the double-hyphen syntax, and drop the triple-hyphen syntax.
Sounds good. The en-dash idea really just came from Wikipedia's explanation of using it in ranges (date ranges too). But breaking the existing em-dash is pain for no gain. I'm changing the design sketch now.
Portfolio
The en-dash is very useful for listing ranges. Take this example:
Tasks: 33—42 are still on hold.
Notice that this now uses an em-dash, which changes the meaning. Instead of saying "Tasks numbered between 33 and 42 are on hold", it says something like "there are 33 current tasks, but 42 others are on hold".
Why were en-dashes dropped over such a minor complaint? (Brunhilda: it's called "search and replace".) You also could have used -- for em and --- for en instead, like SmartyPants does.
Take a look at James Kanjo's entry above from 19-Feb. Do you have any trouble mentally parsing that his "…with you Timothy — I like everything about…" is serving the grammatical function of an em-dash?
No. You don't. :)
Sure, it's not typographically perfect according to current general style conventions, but so what? Why is that a problem? So many "rules" of grammar and typography change and morph over time to meet certain needs. For example, the American English "rule" of putting commas and periods that appear next to a quotation mark inside the quotation mark, "like this." Now consider the British English "rule" of putting commas and periods outside the quotation mark, "like this".
Do you have any trouble mentally parsing either treatment of the period? No. You don't. Do you know how the American "rule" started? Because in the days of movable type, the periods and commas were very fragile, so printers started putting them inside of the sturdy quotation marks. Britain followed this practice too, at the time. But after movable type was replaced by better printing technologies, Britain sensibly changed the rules to reduce all the ambiguity that the former practice tends to cause in many circumstances.
So now we have en-dashes and em-dashes. Not many people know the current rules for using one or the other (largely because the "rules" are inconsistent among different grammar and typography authorities), and they're subsequently mis-used in many cases. And what is the logical rationale for having no intervening spaces on either side of the dashes?
So my thinking is don't bother fixing it, because nothing is truly broken.
"Nothing is broken, I'm sure they'll figure it out…"
That's exactly the kind of thinking that gets people in trouble. Lawsuits have been decided on the basis of punctuation, for example. Here's a line from a contract that sparked a legal dispute:
"This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in
force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for
successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior
notice by either party."
The rule of thumb is that if a prepositional phrase is set off by commas, it can be excluded from the sentence while retaining its essential meaning. The courts decided that it was acceptable for the agreement to be terminated after only one year, even though the contractee intended it to have a five-year minimum.