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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: 0.206s | 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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scelerat ◴[28 Mar 25 04:07 UTC] No.43501430[source]▶
The Mac has had them as part of the standard keyboard layout since 1984. Using Apple kit since then, they have long been burned into my muscle memory:

option-[-] for en dash –

shift-option-[-] for em dash —

replies(1): >>43504340 #
1. simondotau ◴[28 Mar 25 12:06 UTC] No.43504340[source]▶
The option key is IMHO the most underrated feature of the Mac platform. Having another modifier for character input is insanely handy, and I know where to find numerous characters like trademark™, divide (÷), pound (£), degrees (°), pi (π) and so on.