←back to thread

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

(www.merriam-webster.com)
650 points Stratoscope | 4 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 1.411s | source
Show context
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.

replies(45): >>43497951 #>>43497959 #>>43497991 #>>43497995 #>>43498049 #>>43498054 #>>43498058 #>>43498059 #>>43498089 #>>43498153 #>>43498177 #>>43498218 #>>43498231 #>>43498389 #>>43498395 #>>43498405 #>>43498437 #>>43498472 #>>43498488 #>>43498490 #>>43498537 #>>43498605 #>>43498634 #>>43498758 #>>43498838 #>>43498867 #>>43499020 #>>43499053 #>>43499108 #>>43499180 #>>43499193 #>>43499275 #>>43499285 #>>43499331 #>>43499336 #>>43500092 #>>43500616 #>>43501429 #>>43501430 #>>43501576 #>>43503609 #>>43505370 #>>43505896 #>>43506418 #>>43506419 #
n2d4 ◴[27 Mar 25 20:45 UTC] No.43497951[source]▶
Alt+hyphen or alt+shift+hyphen is an endash/emdash. You may not have been aware of it because it's so subtle, but many people (including myself) used emdashes long before 2022

(edit: apparently only on Mac, see reply below)

replies(3): >>43497975 #>>43500141 #>>43503998 #
1. lxgr ◴[28 Mar 25 00:56 UTC] No.43500141[source]▶
That's one of my favorite features of macOS keyboard layouts, but it's so close to one of my least favorite ones – option + space inserting a non-breaking space.

I almost never want that, and when typing "space, en dash, space", it happens quite easily and is usually impossible to tell visually.

replies(1): >>43503484 #
2. akho ◴[28 Mar 25 10:06 UTC] No.43503484[source]▶
You always want a non-breaking space before a dash.
replies(1): >>43506911 #
3. lxgr ◴[28 Mar 25 15:51 UTC] No.43506911[source]▶
How so? Wouldn't this prevent line breaks around dashes bracketing parenthetical statements? That's the opposite of what I want!
replies(1): >>43513432 #
4. akho ◴[29 Mar 25 07:05 UTC] No.43513432{3}[source]▶
Line starting with a dash can be mistaken for dialogue or dashed list, which is not what you want.

In any case: non-breaking space (or otherwise suppressed linebreak, if you don’t use a space) is the rule.