5 ms·
What was it with em dash?
by listic 1y ago
What was it with em dash?
- Ralfp 1y agoPeople usually don't type embdash, just use regular dash (minus sign) they have already on the keyboard. ChatGPT uses emdash instead.
- Wowfunhappy 1y agoAhem. https://www.gally.net/miscellaneous/hn-em-dash-user-leaderboard.html https://www.gally.net/miscellaneous/hn-em-dash-user-leaderbo... As #9 on the leaderboard I feel like I need to defend myself.
- alchemist1e9 1y agoI’m guessing this list is defined by Mac users who all got taught em dash somewhere similar or for similar reasons. It is only easy to use on a Mac. But I wonder what is the 2nd common influence of users using it?
- nick__m 1y agoAndroid — keyboard – good for endash to !
- capitainenemo 1y agoMy favourite android keyboard has a compose key and also a lot of good defaults in long touch on keys (including en and em under dash). Only downside is last android update causes the keyboard to be overlapped in landscape mode. A problem with a number of alternative keyboards out there. https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/issues/957 https://github.com/klausw/hackerskeyboard/issues/957
- Freak_NL 1y agoThis is a misconception which keeps getting repeated. It's easy to use an em-dash on any modern Linux desktop as well (and in a lot of other places).
- chrismorgan 1y agoThough it does still require nominating a key to map to Compose. And is not generally meaningfully documented. So I’d only call it easy for the sorts of people that care enough to find it. But then, long before I had a Compose key, in my benighted days of using Windows, I figured out such codes as Alt+0151. 0150, 0151, 0153, 0169, 0176… a surprising number of them I still remember after not having typed them in a dozen years.
- 1718627440 1y agoI've never bothered to read about the compose key, but en/em-dash is accessible (in Debian) with AltGr-(Shift)-Hyphen/Minus too. Copyright (©) is AltGr-Shift-C.
- dolmen 1y agoI miss the numeric keypad (gone on laptops) to be able to properly type my last name with its accentuated letter.
- stn8188 1y agoIn electrical engineering I'm still using a few alt codes daily, like 248 (degree sign), 234 (Omega), 230 (mu), and 241 (plus or minus). I'd love to add 0151 to the repertoire, but I don't want people to think I used AI to write stuff....
- fao_ 1y agoOn Linux I just type (in sequence): compose - - and it makes an em dash, it takes a quarter of a second longer to produce this. I don't know why the compose key isn't used more often.
- whilenot-dev 1y agoThe compose key feels mandatory for anyone who wants to type their native langauge on an US-english layout. The combination[0] is "Compose--." though: – [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key#Common_compose_combinations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key#Common_compose_com...
- teddyh 1y ago“Compose--.” produces an en dash, not an em dash. An em dash is produced by “Compose---”. Source: grep -e DASH /usr/share/X11/locale/*/Compose
- mock-possum 1y agoAs it should be. I wish this convention were present across more software, “-“ “- -“ and “- - -“ should be the UI norm for entering proper dashes in text input controls.
- WhyNotHugo 1y agoMost software handles this fine if you configure your compositor to use a compose key.
- fao_ 1y agoWhoops, yep that's the one
- crabmusket 1y ago[As an English typer] Where is this compose key on my keyboard? (This is a vaguely Socratic answer to the question of why the compose key is not more often used.)
- throwup238 1y agoOr, you know — iOS. That’s huge marketshare for a keyboard that automatically converts -- to —
- alchemist1e9 1y agoThat probably explains everything from a statistical perspective about this em dash topic. I didn’t know that — Thanks.
- redwall_hp 1y agoOr Microsoft word. Many common tools in different contexts make it easy to do. As it turns out, the differentiator is the level of literacy.
- mock-possum 1y agoAnd whether the user cares to ‘write properly’ to boot. I love using dashes to break up sentences - but I rarely take the time to use the proper dashes, unless I’m writing professionally. I treat capitalization the same way - I rarely capitalize the first letter of a paragraph. I treat ‘rules’ like that as typographic aesthetic design conventions - optional depending on context.
- Philadelphia 1y agoYou can also hold down the hyphen key and select it from the popup menu. En dash lives there, too.
- duncan_britt 1y agoIn emacs, Ctr-x 8 <return> is how i type it. Pretty easy.
- 0x457 1y agoIt's just em dash is the correct symbol, and typing it on Mac is simple: `cmd + -` You can tell if I'm using mac or not for specific comment by the presence of em dash.
- WhyNotHugo 1y agoI’m disappointed that I’m on it — I’ll have to try harder.
- Wowfunhappy 1y agoYou'd need a time machine, it only tracks prior to the release of ChatGPT.
- o1o1o1 1y agoI recently learned to use Option + Shift + `-` (dash) on macOS to type it and use it since then because somebody smarter than me told me that this is the correct one to use (please correct them if you know better :D).
- 1718627440 1y agoSame on GNU/Linux(Debian), except Option is called AltGr.
- LorenDB 1y agoMicrosoft Word at least used to autocorrect two dashes to a single em dash, so I have plenty of old Word documents kicking around with em dashes.
- MangoToupe 1y agoI've been typing "—" since middle school 25 years ago. It's trivial on a mac and always has been (at least since OSX, not sure about classic). Some folks are just too narrow-minded to give others the benefit of the doubt.
- jiggawatts 1y agoiDevices (and maybe MacOS too?) correct various dashes to the Unicode equivalents. Double dash seems to get converted to em-dash automatically.