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

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650 points Stratoscope | 9 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 2.178s | source | bottom
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A_D_E_P_T ◴[27 Mar 25 20:41 UTC] No.43497927[source]▶
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.

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BalinKing ◴[27 Mar 25 21:06 UTC] No.43498177[source]▶
This test feels biased by the fact that, like others have said, macOS provides keyboard shortcuts. For example, I'm only Gen Z and yet have tried for many years to use the proper dash characters in the right places, which is made much easier by virtue of being on a Mac.

Of course, I guess it's entirely possible—even accounting for OS—that this test remains statistically useful. It makes me kinda sad that my (very much human-generated) writing fails the Turing test....

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1. Freak_NL ◴[27 Mar 25 22:13 UTC] No.43498799[source]▶
That has nothing to do with being on a Mac. Em-dashes and the compose-key work fine on Linux, and Android has them under the '-' of the on-screen keyboard when long-pressed.

(Windows probably has some way, but those are rarely discoverable.)

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2. BalinKing ◴[27 Mar 25 22:17 UTC] No.43498830[source]▶
That's true, I do use them a lot on iOS as well—similarly, it's a long-press on '-' to get an en or em dash.
3. tkzed49 ◴[27 Mar 25 23:33 UTC] No.43499501[source]▶
I disagree, there is absolutely no easy way to do it on Windows. You can install a third party program that emulates the compose key but on macos it "just works". And I think that makes a difference for 95% of users
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4. underwater ◴[28 Mar 25 04:32 UTC] No.43501563[source]▶
Install PowerToys, hold dash and then press space. This works for all the variants for any keyboard character.
5. pests ◴[28 Mar 25 05:47 UTC] No.43501952[source]▶
Hit Windows+. click on the "Symbols" tab and they're right there under general punctuation.

Released back in 2019 for Windows 10.

6. dboreham ◴[28 Mar 25 13:20 UTC] No.43505117[source]▶
I've always (well...for 20 years) done a Google search for "em-dash" then copy/paste the character off whatever result page come up. Word and other fancy editors always provided a popup pane where these characters could be clicked to insert.
7. marcellus23 ◴[28 Mar 25 14:48 UTC] No.43506117[source]▶
It's a bit funny. On macOS en and em dashes can be natively typed with alt+- and alt+shift+-. The responses to your comment are apparently suggesting these methods are just as easy as that:

1. Install and configure this extra tool, which also by default enables a ton of other things you may not want, and may as well be a third-party tool even though it's technically built by Microsoft

2. Do a Google search and copy-paste (!)

3. Use a keyboard shortcut to bring up a symbol picker, then click on the tab containing the en and em dashes, then click to type them in

I mean, come on.

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8. _flux ◴[28 Mar 25 18:29 UTC] No.43508583[source]▶
EURKEY layout in particular has them easily accessible.
9. tkzed49 ◴[28 Mar 25 20:32 UTC] No.43509570{3}[source]▶
yeah, this is exactly my point haha. these are not at all the same