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Subject:RE: hyphen or en-dash? From:"Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 31 May 2000 14:30:27 -0400
Bruce Byfield wrote:
>British publications sometimes use an en dash surrounded by
>spaces as an alternative to an em dash. Typesetters who follow
>this practice do so on the grounds that an em dash looks sloppy.
>I agree, so I've adopted the practice.
And Uncle Dick replies:
This is the house style of some publishers. Cambridge University Press is one such, and there may be others in Britain as well. However, you need to exercise care on two accounts.
First, as I wrote previously, in some types of work this construction might be confused with a minus sign. (Think of a situation where variable names are represented by phrases.)
Second, compositors and professional typesetting programs know that the space preceding the dash is a non-breaking space--so the dash does not begin the following line. Word processing programs are not so savvy. Therefore the user has to take care to put a non-breaking space before the dash (search and replace or AutoCorrect could do this, I suppose).
In any case, I think it best to decide this style question based on the fonts you use and the software you use. In some fonts, especially when composed by unsophisticated software and printed on low-resolution devices, do indeed look terrible with em dashes set solid. Others look much better this way. Use your eyes, make a decision, then stick with it.
