american english

This forum is for the discussion of the business and craft of writing help. For example writing style, choices of HTML Help or WinHelp or browser-based and so on...

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Martin Wynne
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Unread post by Martin Wynne »

TomHenehan wrote:I spent twenty years in the typography industry, and I'm still not clear about any rule differentiating the proper use of the em dash versus the en dash. That is to say, I have never been aware of the en-dash's reason for existence
Hi Tom,

Garner's Modern American Usage says:

The Em-Dash is used to mark an interruption in the structure of a sentence.

The En-Dash is used to express a range, and read as "to": A-Z, 1914-1918 war, 1-100, London-Birmingham railway.

Martin.
TomHenehan
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Unread post by TomHenehan »

Thanks, Martin.

I've generally used a hyphen as an en-dash to represent "through." I'm sure I'm not alone in having gotten away with this slightly-sloppy usage, and I can now see that there is a real distinction between this usage, proper to the en-dash, and the usual funciton of the hyphen.
Tom Henehan
CompuVend, Inc.
Makers of DEX Buzz Box®
3322 Hessmer Avenue, Suite 201
Metairie, LA 70002
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Dean Whitlock
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Unread post by Dean Whitlock »

Hi Tom,

I think the rules for typography are always subject to the artistic sensibilities of the current art director at any publishing house. My publisher insists on using the "standard" US rule: em-dash only, no spaces. Personally, I prefer the look of the space-en-space usage and I know I have seen it in US publications. Who knows what the rule will be in a generation? Perhaps the tilde will be quite acceptable by then. I have not seen it used more than once or twice, but I don't frequent many online forums.

BTW, Tim is an expatriate Brit, actually. He just happens to use US English quite well. Or should I say very well?

Dean
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Dean, Martin, Tom,

Personally, I dislike the use of m-dashes without spaces, they make the two connected words look as though they are connected by an overweight hyphen, and you don't want them to look connected at all.

Also, a hyphen and an n-dash are not the same thing. There are three different types of dashes: What you use for ranges (1-10) is a hyphen, which is the shortest. The n-dash is slightly longer and should not be used for ranges because it looks silly there and the m-dash is the longest. My personal preference for semantic interruptions in sentences is an n-dash enclosed by two spaces.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Tim,
Tim Green wrote:What you use for ranges (1-10) is a hyphen, which is the shortest. The n-dash is slightly longer and should not be used for ranges because it looks silly there.
"Garner's Modern American Usage", Oxford University Press, 2003, (900 pages, excellent) says the exact opposite. No reason to agree with him, of course.

Martin.
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Martin,

I know that lots of usage gurus say that longer dashes should be used for ranges but I think that in most cases it really looks out of place. It depends on the typographic context though -- in some fonts the hyphen is so short that it's almost a dot, then you really have to use an n-dash. But some fonts have n-dashes that are almost an m-dash (and m-dashes that you could use to moor a cruise ship), and then I really prefer to use a hyphen.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Bob MacLeod
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dashes, em dashes, and spell check

Unread post by Bob MacLeod »

Since we cannot solve the world's grammar problems, maybe we can solve some of the other, minor issues. Specifically, Help & Manual's spell check automatically registers as misspelled any word that has an em-dash in it. If I type—with a long pause using em dashes—then H&M will regard "type—with" as one word.

I checked the Spell Check settings to see if there was an "ignore em and en dashes" but there wasn't. Any advice?
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Bob,
Specifically, Help & Manual's spell check automatically registers as misspelled any word that has an em-dash in it.
Please post this to the Bug Reports section so that the developers will be sure to see it. It may or may not be possible to correct it quickly (the spell checker is a third-party component). The workaround is to put spaces on both sides of the m-dash. Opinions vary on whether or not this looks good but personally I prefer it. An m-dash is an ellipsis and if you don't put spaces around it it just looks like an inflated hyphen and I find that that defeats the semantic purpose.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Bob MacLeod
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Spell check doesn't like em dashes and en dashes

Unread post by Bob MacLeod »

I agree with you that having a space before/after any dash looks better; it's less crowded. The problem I face is that when creating help tools, I often have to import text others have created, and they don't put the spaces in.

I have posted a bug report. Thanks.
Bob
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