Agreed: a semi-colon is a bit stop-start, while a en-dash just flows. I’ve used them, with spaces, for decades. Minus-minus in plain text, and autocorrect read

Agreed: a semi-colon is a bit stop-start, while a en-dash just flows. I’ve used them, with spaces, for decades. Minus-minus in plain text, and autocorrect reads that nicely. I sometimes use an em-dash, but mostly in LaTeX: they’re too awkward in plain text. I use ellipses too …