You will pry my em dashes from my cold — and dead — hands.
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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!
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@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.
@DamonHD@mastodon.social @dramypsyd@ohai.social I also prefer em-dash with spaces, despite being wrong. Just looks better and matches the purpose of the dash more. -
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 They're so much nicer than having to put in two separate dashes to loosely represent them. I will never go back — if someone accuses me, so be it.
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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 Damn right. I’ve always been a bit embarrassed by how much I overuse em dashes — and, really, who wouldn’t be? — but I’ve decided THIS is the hill I’m gonna die on. They can’t take them away from us. Dash proudly.
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@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.@gnate @tychotithonus I have a tendency to type them without spaces, but I'm trying to retrain myself. Screen readers parse the words better with the spaces.
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@gnate @tychotithonus I have a tendency to type them without spaces, but I'm trying to retrain myself. Screen readers parse the words better with the spaces.
@djwudi
I'm not even in the 20th century, and here you are dragging me into the 21st!Thanks, good factor to be aware of.
@tychotithonus
