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

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650 points Stratoscope | 2 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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. quanloh ◴[28 Mar 25 05:46 UTC] No.43501944{3}[source]▶
In my region at least, -5 ~ -2°C, or -5°C ~ -2°C. If the something is making people confuse, we replace it with a suitable substitution. Re-educating people is really just last resort. Is there anything keeping us from changing it other than ego?
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2. CRConrad ◴[08 Apr 25 23:46 UTC] No.43627569[source]▶
In all countries I've lived in (and until right now, I thought the entire world), that would mean "-5 is approximately equal to -2".