Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!atanasoff!jwright
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: em-dashes
Message-ID: <1188@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>
Date: 11 Jul 89 05:41:59 GMT
References: <65590@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <65736@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <28@nx32s.anduk.co.uk>
Reply-To: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu.UUCP (Jim Wright)
Organization: Iowa State U. Computer Science Department, Ames, IA
Lines: 39

I thought I was figuring this out.  The style of usage for em-dashes is
(apparently) a matter of taste.  And I was ready to change my old habit
of providing spaces.  Then this...

In article <28@nx32s.anduk.co.uk> lee@nx32s.UUCP (0000-Liam R. Quin) writes:
| Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes:
| > leichter@CS (Jerry Leichter) writes:
| 
| Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford
| (I have the 39th edition), has the following to say about dashes:
| [p.43]	Em rules or dashes---in this and the next line an
| 	example is given---are often used to show that words
| 	enclosed between them are to be treated parenthetically.
[...]
| >I've seen en dashes with surrounding spaces used as em dashes, but that's not
| >attractive, either.  Do it this way---and no other.
| Hart's explicitly forbids this!

But didn't you just imply above that Hart uses this method?!?!  Perhaps
you're thinking of the manner in which it is used and not the way it is
set on the page?

| They [em-dashes] are considered by Hart's to be on the same
| semantic level as (parentheses) and ... ellipses.

And how about a new can of worms? :-)  Let's talk about ellipses.  Is
there only one way to set them?  It seems they have two uses: to
indicate an uncompleted thought or truncated quote, or to indicate the
absence of text.  In the first case, I leave no space between the ellipse
and the text.  I don't use the second case often, but apparently the
ellipse ought to have space on both sides.  Correct?  Am I leaving
something out?

Does anyone have suggestions on a reference as to how to use and
typeset the English language?  It seems I could use one.  :-)

-- 
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu