Emdash fans!

[mcc@mastodon.social]

Emdash fans! Answer! Do you put spaces around the emdash?

[xgranade@wandering.shop]

@mcc Voted yes — on both sides — but it's slightly more complicated. When using an em-dash as an interjection, I only add spaces to the right, but when I use em-dashes to denote parenthetical clauses, I use spaces on either side.

[kqct@fedi.quiet.horse]

@mcc i grew up learning specifically that spaces go around en dashes, not em dashes

[lynne@mk.pars.ee]

@mcc@mastodon.social I hardly ever use them, but double dashes ftw. Even triple dashes for extra stress.
Or for commenting Lua.

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@mcc I have been gradually shifting from “yes” to “no” and I am not sure how I feel about that

[pigworker@types.pl]

@mcc It wasn't always so. But eventually I had the epiphany. Go wide or go home.

[video_game_king@mastodon.social]

@mcc I need a result for "I just use the dash key because my OS/browser/etc. doesn't insert em- and en-dashs automatically."

[knowprose@mastodon.social]

@mcc in a world of bits and bytes, I err on the side of efficiency. 🤣

[klara@wandering.shop]

@mcc Not when I'm actually using an emdash, but in casual conversation I'll approximate it with "-- ".

I don't have a reason for this other than that I'm copying a convention people I knew on LiveJournal used. I used to do " - " but eventually got self-conscious about it for reasons that again I don't think I can really explain. I guess you could say that space-after enforces a consistent interaction with word-wrap? I dunno.

I'm also inexplicably stubborn about preferring ASCII in casual text.

[legit_spaghetti@mastodo.neoliber.al]

@mcc In German, I use a spaced emdash. In English, I use an unspaced emdash.

[kkremitzki@mastodon.social]

@mcc I don't--and I use double hyphens for avoidance of doubt

[cr1901@mastodon.social]

@mcc @ThomasWaldmann taught me that I was using them wrong for basically my whole life :'D...

https://github.com/borgbackup/borg/pull/9031#discussion_r2392902417

[screwturn@mastodon.social]

@mcc
Yes, both, but also, remembering which key sequence I programmed to do the em-dash turned out to be too hard, to I just use an ordinary dash and spaces and hope readers interpret that appropriately

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@Video_Game_King Try WinCompose, it's great. I have it set to trigger on WIN-dash followed by dash.

[diplodocus@mastodon.social]

@mcc if it’s a website I like   but in plain text—no

[lahosken@hachyderm.io]

@mcc no spaces, probably because Chicago Manual of Style was the first style guide I ever followed.

[thad@brontosin.space]

@mcc Generally yes, though if I use it on Mastodon or somewhere else with a character limit I usually don't.

[joshg@mathstodon.xyz]

@mcc I'm still adjusting to using a real emdash and not just a - with spaces around it; my understanding is that it's supposed to have zero spaces but I still default to typing them and then catch it afterwards.

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@mcc we always want to but we know it's incorrect so we leave them off. and really, like.... the problems that an em dash solves, really do benefit from not having the spaces. like we don't really use em dashes except for things like definition lists where they're truly the best solution, you know?

[ireneista@adhd.irenes.space]

@mcc (when our goal is to set off a subordinate clause, we usually use parentheses, or semicolons, or when it gets really awkward we use our superpower of resisting overly-clever sentence structure and just breaking it into shorter sentences. on rare occasion when all those approaches fail, we use en dashes - not em dashes - but we actually just write them with the hyphen character because it's close enough. we do put spaces around those, but we think that's correct...)