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

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650 points Stratoscope | 1 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.284s | source
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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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tshaddox ◴[27 Mar 25 21:38 UTC] No.43498488[source]▶
I've been Googling "em dash" and copypasting from the Google results for a solid 15 years now. Long before LLMs.
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hiccuphippo ◴[27 Mar 25 23:09 UTC] No.43499299[source]▶
I modify the keymap to use AltGr+dash as em dash. Very easy in Linux with xmodmap, bit more complicated in Windows with the Keyboard Layout Creator.
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1. ogurechny ◴[28 Mar 25 01:40 UTC] No.43500476[source]▶
`misc:typo` has been in xkb for about 15 years. There's also xkb-birman (matching the current state of the project that inspired all of it). If your national layout does not have level 3 and 4 symbols set, those should work straight away. If it does, it is highly likely that they clash, so you need to create a suitable subset. It is highly advised to find like-minded people, discuss the best options, and then gently push the result to upstream to make it available for everyone. After all, it's Linux, if you won't do it, no one will.