The humble yet über-useful em dash

[ander]

We're all typing geeks, so it's okay to bring up this kind of thing, right?

As you may know—and if you don't, you oughta—there are three kinds of dash-type characters:

• The hyphen ( - ), used to join compound words and break words across lines of text:

mother-in-law

He said our new Amana refrig-
erator would be here Tuesday

• The en dash ( – ) [entered by holding Alt and typing numpad 0150], for such things as date and time ranges:

1843–1905

7–10 P.M.

• The em dash ( — ) [entered by holding Alt and typing numpad 0151], used to distinguish additional thoughts in sentences (and where commas could otherwise be used, to improve legibility), and show interruptions in dialogue:

You'll notice that this sentence—which I'm including here as an example of the use of em dashes—appears in a nice lime-green colour.

"What?" he said. "But I just got here, and—" Then a piano fell on him.

(They're called em and en dashes, BTW, because they were historically about the widths of capital M's and N's, respectively.)

So how come I'm one of the few peeps on here—and forgive me if I've overlooked more of you—who takes advantage of em dashes, one of the most useful bits of punctuation ever? How do the rest of you get along without them?

And if you do use them, and you use TKL keebs, how you do enter them without a numpad?

I'll hang up now and take my answer off the air.

[sth]

OS X has had option keys for this for a long time. i don't use them nearly as often now that i'm mostly on linux and windows for work.

[Coreda]

So how come I'm one of the few peeps on here—and forgive me if I've overlooked more of you—who takes advantage of em dashes, one of the most useful bits of punctuation ever? How do the rest of you get along without them?

And if you do use them, and you use TKL keebs, how you do enter them without a numpad?

Autohotkey. Makes typing them easier. I've configured shortcut strings for a variety of commonly used characters that expand to the desired character when entered, like em dash, symbols, etc.

Edit: had previously listed using expanding strings for filename Unicode alternative characters but after Sifo's post realized I use keyboard combination hotkeys for these instead (again via AHK).

[Sifo]

Fn + number row programmed to be numberpad input on a TKL

[Zobeid Zuma]

If it's not 7-bit ASCII then you are only asciing for trouble, man!

Sort of like those damn useless "smart quotes".   

[rowdy]

What is this "numpad" of which you speak?

Sent from my SSK.

[SpAmRaY]

Oh hey this thread again

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91026.0

[Zobeid Zuma]

And if you do use them, and you use TKL keebs, how you do enter them without a numpad?

BTW, I can also feel a bit smug since I'm using a Mac Pro and my Matias Mini Tactile Pro actually has those symbols printed on the key caps.

dash: -
option-dash: –
shift-option-dash:  —

Likewise if I want Æ or Œ or ® or © or … or those wretched “smart quotes” that cause so many headaches, all I have to do is squint down at the keycaps and find the symbol.  More exotic symbols and emojis require hitting ctrl-cmd-space to bring up the whole catalog of them.

[FrostyToast]

I use one dash to rule them all.

[ander]

Autohotkey. Makes typing them easier. I've configured shortcut strings for a variety of commonly used characters that expand to the desired character when entered, like em dash, symbols, etc.

Yes, I know about AutoHotkey, but it seems like overkill installing and running a system-wide hook app just to be able to type two extended characters... I wondered if there was a way to do it with the keeb that I hadn't heard about yet.

Fn + number row programmed to be numberpad input on a TKL

Really? Is that a universal thing on TKLs with Fn keys?

Oh hey this thread again

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=91026.0

I'm flattered you're keeping track of my threads. I didn't get a satisfactory answer there, though, so I thought I'd ask again here—hope you're not too offended [LOL].

What is this "numpad" of which you speak?

It's the (universally recognized, I thought) standard short form of number pad, which we peeps who've been around since pre-DOS days usually call them.

I suppose you call it a "tenkey". Well, there's nothing wrong with disregarding a computing term that's been used since computer keyboards existed. It's like referring to keys as "caps", even though IBM created that computing term to describe the upper parts of their two-piece keys, and using it to describe one-piece keys relegates keys to the role of "switch caps" (which seems to downplay their many interesting qualities beyond that basic function, if you ask me). Or when eBay sellers refer to keyboard cables as "wires".

This usually happens when someone new to an aspect of technology doesn't know what something's called and invents their own word for it. Then others who are new to it assume that's what it's always been called, little realizing it's just a trendy little word that popped into someone's brain who wasn't there when these things were actually developed and used.

But hey, it's cute. We should think of more words like that. I mean, what else are we doing? Hanging around talking about keyboards, while the rest of the world is actually out there doing stuff, right? So hey, why not?

If it's not 7-bit ASCII then you are only asciing for trouble, man!

Yowch! LOL

Sort of like those damn useless "smart quotes".    :p

You're equating em/en dashes with smart quotes? Sorry, I don't see that. Dashes aren't variations on themselves; they're discrete marks o' punctuation, with specific functions transcending mere typography.

I use one dash to rule them all.

And which "dash" would that be?

[tp4tissue]

sometimes i jsut use multiple dashes ------- --- --- 

[ander]

Anyway, is no one interested in discussing what I actually started this topic about: the use or non-use of dashes?

Maybe it's a mistake to assume that just because we focus on keyboards here, writing—you know, what you use your keebs for when you're not gaming (if you ever do that)?—would be of interest too.

I've always considered dashes essential forms of punctuation, and never understood why they were excluded from the standard keyboard layout.

How else can you interject a corollary thought—such as this one, which I'm providing for your convenience by typing it here, between these dashes—into a sentence?

Commas? Nah:

How else can you interject a corollary thought, such as this one, which I'm providing for your convenience by typing it here, between these dashes, into a sentence?

That looks like someone walking down the street mumbling to themselves. The dashes set off the interposing thought, keeping the sentence organized and literate.

Maybe you don't care. Maybe dashes have gone the way of so many other refined things—for example, music that has more than three chords; ideas longer than 4 bars, variations in mood, dynamics, and tempo; and purposes other than providing a dance beat, drowning out conversation and causing lasting hearing damage. Maybe it's just part of the corporation-guided, convenience-oriented shallowing-out of our culture for the purpose of making us less sophisticated, and our needs and interests less specialized, to streamline the design, marketing and selling of goods and services.

If so, okay, fine. I was just curious.

[ander]

I mean, look at the president we just elected. I could probably have stopped there—although if you take a look at the quote in my sig, you'll see that dashes were necessary to correctly render it.  ;?)

[mrhead]

I stopped using the em dash because of my days using aim/msn/icq etc for chatting and people using fonts with characters missing would get the 󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓 boxes and they'd freak out thinking I was uploading a virus or something. Go figure.  ಊ⚗

[Coreda]

My d⸺ is longer

[Findecanor]

I don't have emdash or endash in my keymap - I use a single hyphen surrounded by spaces.

[chyros]

In emails and more serious documentation I use all three dash types, invariably using alt codes. At least I used to before I started working somewhere where they use Macs (the horror!), which, in Apple's wisdom, doesn't allow for alt codes.

[xtrafrood]

Could omit alt codes altogether with universal oldsʞool--or not it's up to you.

[ander]

I stopped using the em dash because of my days using aim/msn/icq etc for chatting and people using fonts with characters missing would get the 󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓󱍓 boxes and they'd freak out thinking I was uploading a virus or something. Go figure.  ಊ⚗

Well, thanks for sharing that, I guess...

My d⸺ is longer

Yet another handy use! No doubt there are more.

I don't have emdash or endash in my keymap - I use a single hyphen surrounded by spaces.

Could omit alt codes altogether with universal oldsʞool--or not it's up to you.

Yes, I realize I could use three dashes (two's not enough for legibility), or space-hyphen-hyphen-space (one hyphen just looks like a hyphen, not a dash) to simulate a dash. But if I didn't mind doing that, would I have started this topic?

And where's the subtlety, efficiency, or literacy in it? A lot of you MK guys are coders—aren't you into precision and accuracy? Would you really rather use three or more substitute symbols than one correct one? It's like typing a period and a comma to simulate a semicolon, isn't it? (Although I'm probably the only person on GH who still uses semicolons...)

Multiple symbols can also be broken by linebreaks. And you can't anticipate that, because you don't know how wide people's browser windows are.