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

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650 points Stratoscope | 4 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.689s | source
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Starlevel004 ◴[27 Mar 25 22:09 UTC] No.43498765[source]▶
I refuse to care about this. A single dash is all I will ever use. I see no possible reason to use the other two.
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theelous3 ◴[27 Mar 25 22:25 UTC] No.43498913[source]▶
Throwing my hat in here. The sub millimeter difference in the length of a dash conveys no additional meaning or clarity. It is impossible to argue me out of this position.

It's not like you can reliably write these consistently by hand either without going over the top in length to make it extremely obvious.

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california-og ◴[28 Mar 25 02:00 UTC] No.43500614[source]▶
Here's some examples where the en dash could make things more clear:

-5--2°C

post-war-pre-digital era

See sections 10-O-15-Q

Try Our New York-London Flight Connection!

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1. mvdtnz ◴[28 Mar 25 03:10 UTC] No.43501101[source]▶
-5°C to -2°C

post-war - pre-digital era (not a sentence any sane person would use anyway).

See sections 10-O - 15-Q

Try our New York-London flight connection! (no kind of dash clears this one up without fixing capitalisation).

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2. california-og ◴[28 Mar 25 03:34 UTC] No.43501248[source]▶
The last one was a gotcha: it's their newly established York–London flight!

Try Our New York–London Flight Connection.

Or if it was New York:

Try Our New York – London Flight Connection.

Note the additional spaces. Agree on the capitalization though.

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3. handoflixue ◴[28 Mar 25 04:22 UTC] No.43501506[source]▶
> Try Our New York – London Flight Connection.

I'd wager serious money that if you put that on a sign and surveyed people, at least in the US, they'd all still conclude it is a "New York" to "London" flight.

What's the use of a communication tool, if it doesn't actually communicate anything to real people?

4. voidUpdate ◴[28 Mar 25 11:33 UTC] No.43504083[source]▶
York doesn't have an active airport