You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands.
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@dramypsyd they've always been out of my grasp due to a reliance on Windows and Linux. Having a keyboard without a numpad has really finished it.
It's a shame cus I do associate them with people that do the good writing with sentences and all.
I have Emacs set up to make it easy to enter en-dash, em-dash, ellipsis, and proper quotation marks, but there are alternatives:
Insert En Dash ( – ) and Em Dash ( — ) on Linux: Here’s How
Looking to use appropriately long hyphens? Find out here how to insert en dash (–) and em dash (—) on Linux using keyboard.
La De Du (ladedu.com)
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd And making sure they have a little space around them, despite the pressure to exclude it (from editors and convention)!
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd It’s also called a mutton!
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd + 1 !
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd Me as well! I have found them very expressive—dynamic.
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd I wasn’t expecting Em-Dash Hill to be the one I’d die on, but I’m right there with you.
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd
That, and my Oxford comma! -
You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd as a member of team parentheticals with spaced en-dashes: i stand with you against the ensloppifiers!
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@rickf @dramypsyd Yeah…
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@dramypsyd
That, and my Oxford comma!@mloxton @dramypsyd You go! I’ll add my non-Oxford comma to the mix. Human ambiguity and variety FTW!
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@dramypsyd And making sure they have a little space around them, despite the pressure to exclude it (from editors and convention)!
@tychotithonus
Well now I'm curious about the history of that convention. I'm used to seeing em dashes without space, but in a literary context. As in Joseph Conrad, Melville,et al. (Bit of a stab in the dark, can't confirm such use by those particular authors...)
@dramypsyd -
You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd I have a strong opinion that the em-dash has a very specific, narrow set of correct usages and should not be tossed about willy-nilly.
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@tychotithonus
Well now I'm curious about the history of that convention. I'm used to seeing em dashes without space, but in a literary context. As in Joseph Conrad, Melville,et al. (Bit of a stab in the dark, can't confirm such use by those particular authors...)
@dramypsydYep, exactly. But they break the flow of understanding the text, historical usage be darned!
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
Agreed - I feel exactly the same.
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Yep, exactly. But they break the flow of understanding the text, historical usage be darned!
@tychotithonus
It's all about expectations. I did find it jarring upon the first encounters, but now I find it jarring to see spaces where I'm not used to seeing them. -
You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd I have taken the same position on semicolons; a perfectly cromulent punctuation that nobody, including me, uses correctly. And yet...like the ellipsis..they shall never take it from me.
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
You have to provoke them — ideally by inserting several sorts of punctuation; en dashes (–) and hyphens (-) included.
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You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands. I had them before AI was conceived and I’ll have them long after it’s gone.
@dramypsyd@ohai.social Technically your em-dashes are wrong. em-dashes are generally not meant to be surrounded by spaces—unlike en-dashes, which the Germans use for speaking their German language – a truly marvelous one, probably.
Practically, have fun! Rules for language don't matter. -
@dramypsyd@ohai.social Technically your em-dashes are wrong. em-dashes are generally not meant to be surrounded by spaces—unlike en-dashes, which the Germans use for speaking their German language – a truly marvelous one, probably.
Practically, have fun! Rules for language don't matter.@divVerent @dramypsyd I am an ex-small-time editor, and for practical and aesthetic reasons think that consistently wrapping em- and not en- dashes in whitespace is the better option.
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@dramypsyd@ohai.social Technically your em-dashes are wrong. em-dashes are generally not meant to be surrounded by spaces—unlike en-dashes, which the Germans use for speaking their German language – a truly marvelous one, probably.
Practically, have fun! Rules for language don't matter.@divVerent I learned something new today—thank you!
