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I totally agree! When I was growing up, I saw plays also use it like this: The two are in a room. -- Some guy says this -- The other guy says that You
by EGreg 10mo ago
I totally agree!
When I was growing up, I saw plays also use it like this:
The two are in a room.
-- Some guy says this
-- The other guy says that
You just don't see em-dashes used like they used to -- and it shows!
- schoen 10mo agoThis use in dialogue is common in Continental European languages, especially Romance languages. I think it's also common in English among writers who were influenced by other European languages?
- messe 10mo agoIIRC Joyce was a fan.
- blauditore 10mo agoWhich languages are you talking about? It looks unfamiliar to me.
- schoen 10mo agoHere's someone talking about an example in French: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/fr-em-dash-usage.3643672/ https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/fr-em-dash-usage.364... I believe I've also seen it in Spanish and Portuguese.
- rafabulsing 10mo agoBrazilian here. That is indeed the standard way dialogue is represented in literature. We call the em-dash a "travessão".
- pbalau 10mo agoI think Romanian uses that too and it just occurred to me that "linie de dialog" is not dash, but em dash.
- jonah 10mo agoThey used two hyphens -- instead because typewriters don't have em dashes —.
- EGreg 10mo agoSure, but that's not what I was talking about :)