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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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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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thesauri ◴[27 Mar 25 20:45 UTC] No.43497959[source]▶
On Macs:

Hyphen -: -

En Dash –: alt -

Em Dash —: alt shift -

replies(1): >>43498029 #
alabastervlog ◴[27 Mar 25 20:51 UTC] No.43498029[source]▶
The default US English Mac keyboard is so extremely good, and has been the way it is for so long, that I remain baffled that other platforms haven't simply copied it. I came to it relatively late in life and it's one of the reasons I wish I'd started using Macs sooner.
replies(2): >>43498350 #>>43498559 #
culi ◴[27 Mar 25 21:47 UTC] No.43498559[source]▶
It's pretty decent but the fact that I can't type an arbitrary unicode character has been a huge annoyance of mine since I switched from Windows/WSL to Mac.

They have shortcuts for Í, Î, and Ï but not for many commonly used characters like arrows

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minitech ◴[27 Mar 25 22:11 UTC] No.43498778[source]▶
Control+Command+Space or Fn+E or Edit > Emoji & Symbols if you know the character’s name. It’s not very convenient for repeated use, but it gets the job done in a pinch.
replies(1): >>43502958 #
1. culi ◴[28 Mar 25 08:38 UTC] No.43502958[source]▶
Yeah it's not great. Edit isn't always there. Fn+E seems to make the most sense. I've heard about ctrl+cmd+space but commonly forget it. Both of those open the same GUI which combines emojis, stickers, and unicode symbols—preferring the first two categories over the last. To type out a unicode symbol it takes at least three clicks on top of me starting to type in the name of my symbol

sigh

Thanks for the suggestions

replies(1): >>43512074 #
2. Aaron2222 ◴[29 Mar 25 02:02 UTC] No.43512074[source]▶
> Edit isn't always there. Fn+E seems to make the most sense. I've heard about ctrl+cmd+space but commonly forget it.

You can remap Fn/Globe directly to it if you want. It's also accessible from the Input menu bar item if you show that.

> Both of those open the same GUI which combines emojis, stickers, and unicode symbols—preferring the first two categories over the last. To type out a unicode symbol it takes at least three clicks on top of me starting to type in the name of my symbol

Are you using the expanded Character Viewer window[0], or the default collapsed Emoji & Symbols pane[1]? Because the expanded Character Viewer lets you customise and reorder the categories[2] (though that doesn't affect search), including adding a full Unicode view[3]. And they both default to the search bar when opened (though the Character Viewer opens unfocused for some reason).

[0]: https://imgur.com/hTtrbcA

[1]: https://imgur.com/3L31DQu

[2]: https://imgur.com/Ch1PI5L

[3]: https://imgur.com/epayzwe