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

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650 points Stratoscope | 6 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.446s | source | bottom
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TomasEkeli ◴[27 Mar 25 23:11 UTC] No.43499317[source]▶
I'm just gonna say it: this does not matter. Just use whatever you want. If you're afraid that someone is going to think less of you for it: the people who matter won't.
replies(1): >>43499566 #
1. efilife ◴[27 Mar 25 23:41 UTC] No.43499566[source]▶
For those who downvoted this - how does a millimeter of difference in the length of a line matter?
replies(1): >>43500917 #
2. scottyeager ◴[28 Mar 25 02:43 UTC] No.43500917[source]▶
Well-meaning can vary if you don't put spaces around your dashes, and a well—meaning writer wants to ease the job of the reader.

ıt might simpıy not matter though, a miııimeter here and there, ı suppose.

replies(3): >>43502903 #>>43504680 #>>43604876 #
3. rkosk ◴[28 Mar 25 08:31 UTC] No.43502903[source]▶
The difference in dash length really doesn't matter and your example is not the same at all, but it probably made you feel really smart.
4. MindBeams ◴[28 Mar 25 12:44 UTC] No.43504680[source]▶
Did you mix those up on purpose?
5. roryokane ◴[06 Apr 25 20:53 UTC] No.43604876[source]▶
An excellent example of why dash length matters. Because of the wrong usage of ‘—’ and ‘-’, it took me 10 more seconds of rereading and re-parsing your comment to understand what that first sentence meant.

I see what you did in the second paragraph too. It’s another example of “a millimeter of difference in the length of a line” mattering in that it looks weird, though it’s not much harder to read.

replies(1): >>43607782 #
6. scottyeager ◴[07 Apr 25 04:43 UTC] No.43607782{3}[source]▶
The undotted small "i" character comes from the modern Turkish alphabet. It's perhaps only slightly disorienting for an English reader to slightly shorten some letters that are just lines in a sans-serif font. In Turkish though, a millimeter of line can make an entirely different letter.

Being able to render a variety of line lengths with different meanings is a cool and useful thing.