Spaces around Em dash?

[sr71plt]

That's more of a British/American thing than a style manual thing. The Brits use an en dash with a space on both sides. We use an em dash with no spaces.

First, have you mistyped em dash here, or are you going off in another irrelevancy?

Second, when a style manual establishes a chosen style, it's a style manual thing, applicable to publishers using that style. There are some British publishers (Continuum, for example) that use the Chicago Manual of Style.

What does Oxford do on the em dashes, by the way? A comparison of CMS and AP on this isn't a U.S./British comparison. CMS and Oxford would be a U.S./British comparison on humanities publishing.

Third, why do people insist on making something pretty simple difficult and unnecessarily nonuniform?

 

[LadyVer]

I think it only confuses writers on Literotica to be given styles that are irrelevant to what is written to Literotica.

I'm not disagreeing with you about the Chicago style. Given some of the comments, it appeared that some writers weren't aware of the differences.

 

[legerdemer]

I think it only confuses writers on Literotica to be given styles that are irrelevant to what is written to Literotica.

Laurel doesn't enforce standards a lot, but officially it's only the Chicago Manual of Style that counts for Lit. British style, AP style, how to punctuate Nahuatl...that's just confusing stuff for poor plebes like me.

I'm not disagreeing with you about the Chicago style. Given some of the comments, it appeared that some writers weren't aware of the differences.

I should have clarified. Chicago, em dash, no spaces. AP, journalism, em dash, with spaces.

I just learned something I didn't know before; I don't feel confused, I feel--slightly--enlightened.

 

[KenNicottii]

I am a prolific user of the em dash—much to the consternation of my editor(s). Since this character doesn’t exist in ASCII, I was pleasantly surprised to see it carryover properly when I saved my first story as a text file—and when the story was published on Literotica. (Unicode is your friend.)

Oddly enough, MS Word will convert both a single hyphen, as well as a double hyphen, to an en dash when you type a space before and after the hyphen (once you’ve typed a space after the second word, as mentioned above). That was news to me since I rarely use the en dash, even when I should, relying on the hyphen instead. But now you’ve got unwanted spaces on either side of the en dash that have to be deleted manually:

"pre – Revolutionary War", instead of "pre–Revolutionary War"

Easy to work around if you’re using a full-sized keyboard with numeric keypad, but requires more hassle or ingenuity otherwise.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

This is probably a dumb question, but I've been using "..." instead of " - " to show pauses in dialog. Is the " - " the accepted standard?

I was wondering the same thing! Great minds and all that

My kid that is about to graduate and was in AP English brings out her red pen when she reads over my stuff. She says I am an ellipses whore, hehehe

 

[Green_Knight]

Laurel doesn't enforce standards a lot, but officially it's only the Chicago Manual of Style that counts for Lit...

Can you point to where it lays this down? It seems to be remarkably elusive, except in some people's imaginations.

 

[Green_Knight]

What does Oxford do on the em dashes, by the way? A comparison of CMS and AP on this isn't a U.S./British comparison. CMS and Oxford would be a U.S./British comparison on humanities publishing.

Firstly, it calls them rules, not dashes.

Secondly, it says that 'Many British publishers use an en rule with space either side as a parenthetical dash, but Oxford and most US publishers use an em rule', which it subsequently points out should be closed up.

 

[NotWise]

I proclaimed earlier in this thread that I had no problems with em dashes appearing correctly in my stories. This morning my newest story went live and all of the em dashes appeared as hyphens.

This is my problem, not the site's. I saved the story as a text fill in ASCII, which doesn't contain an em dash. Now to get that changed...

 

[sr71plt]

Firstly, it calls them rules, not dashes.

Secondly, it says that 'Many British publishers use an en rule with space either side as a parenthetical dash, but Oxford and most US publishers use an em rule', which it subsequently points out should be closed up.

Thanks for checking that out. I haven't gotten around to buying an Oxford style guide. (I have edited for the U.S. branch of the Oxford publisher, but it uses the Chicago Manual of Style).

 

[Green_Knight]

Thanks for checking that out. I haven't gotten around to buying an Oxford style guide. (I have edited for the U.S. branch of the Oxford publisher, but it uses the Chicago Manual of Style).

In some ways I prefer the previous edition – you may be able to pick it up on the second-hand market at a decent price. The new edition includes a substantial dictionary of words that might cause particular problems (eg is it second-hand or secondhand) but it makes the book rather unwieldy for convenient use.

 

[NotWise]

Can you point to where it lays this down? It seems to be remarkably elusive, except in some people's imaginations.

I can't, and I've made some effort to find it. I recall reading somewhere in the site's official guidance that they used the Chicago Manual of Style as their authoritative reference. I haven't been able to find that statement.

Anyone else?

 

[sr71plt]

I can't, and I've made some effort to find it. I recall reading somewhere in the site's official guidance that they used the Chicago Manual of Style as their authoritative reference. I haven't been able to find that statement.

Anyone else?

The only thing close to an endorsement by Lit. of an authority is Strunk and White (an essay on using it is recommended in the Writers Resources area). That's sort of limiting, though, because Strunk and White is for high school essays, not commercial fiction. It's better than using nothing, though.

 

[tomlitilia]

Does anyone have a story posted where closed Em dashes are used and are published as such (i.e. not two hyphens ore something)? I want to see what it looks like when published on Lit.

 

[sr71plt]

Does anyone have a story posted where closed Em dashes are used and are published as such (i.e. not two hyphens ore something)? I want to see what it looks like when published on Lit.

You could check out any of my stories. I use em dashes a lot. For instance, "3 For Poe," which is nonerotic. https://www.literotica.com/s/3-for-poe

 

[tomlitilia]

Gracias. They actually look better published than in my processor.

 

[KenNicottii]

... My kid that is about to graduate and was in AP English brings out her red pen when she reads over my stuff. She says I am an ellipses whore, hehehe

When I try to think about what it would have been like to know my mom was writing dirty stories to be enjoyed by a worldwide audience, and my little sister--fresh from her AP English studies--was sitting around the breakfast table with her, helping to proof them, my head spins so hard and fast that it falls right off.

 

[_Lynn_]

When I try to think about what it would have been like to know my mom was writing dirty stories to be enjoyed by a worldwide audience, and my little sister--fresh from her AP English studies--was sitting around the breakfast table with her, helping to proof them, my head spins so hard and fast that it falls right off.

My daughter joined me for NaNo a few years ago. She used to post here on the forum, too. We had fun.

 

[RejectReality]

If you're having problems with Lit changing your em dashes to double dashes upon publication, one certain way around it is to use the ASCII special character code.

—

Just type that directly into the document ( or find-replace ) wherever you want the em dash. The semicolon is important, so don't forget it.

 

[sr71plt]

copying and pasting directly into the dialogue box from Word with em dashes in place works just fine.

 

[RejectReality]

Not everyone uses Word. The text processor is obviously written around it, but if you're comfortable with another program and don't want to switch, the special character code is a surefire way to get em dashes to render.

 

[Dream_Operator]

A lot of beginning writers use, misuse, and overuse ellipses -- mistakenly thinking they represent dramatic pauses -- they don't.

Apparently, this ... arose ... from ... email ... speak

 

[ElectricBlue]

A lot of beginning writers use, misuse, and overuse ellipses -- mistakenly thinking they represent dramatic pauses -- they don't.

They do, when used correctly; ie, not often, and only for dramatic effect...

Not, as you say, for someone who can't actually get their thoughts together to utter a coherent sentence.

 

[Dream_Operator]

They do, when used correctly; ie, not often, and only for dramatic effect...

Um, no they don't. Not sure where you got that from. Please provide some reference material.

Thanks.

 

[NotWise]

Um, no they don't. Not sure where you got that from. Please provide some reference material.

Thanks.

Golly, I hope you guys know what you're talking about, because I have no clue. You are disputing what "they" do and don't do and I wonder. Are you still talking about ellipses, or did you go off on something else? And who is an authority on what "they" do?

The argument is actually so ambiguous that you should probably stick a bunch of "..." into it. That would make the issue all so clear!

 

[ElectricBlue]

Um, no they don't. Not sure where you got that from. Please provide some reference material.

Thanks.

A random search online gave this:

"In informal writing, an ellipsis can be used to represent a trailing off of thought.

If only she had . . . Oh, it doesn’t matter now.

An ellipsis can also indicate hesitation, though in this case the punctuation is more accurately described as suspension points.

I wasn’t really . . . well, what I mean . . . see, the thing is . . . I didn’t mean it.

Like the exclamation point, the ellipsis is at risk of overuse."


Hesitation could loosely be construed as a dramatic pause, I guess is where I was coming from. I'm not aware of any other punctuation mark that serves the purpose.

I wouldn't use an en dash (Oz usage) to signify a pause, but I would use it to signify a juxtaposition of ideas (both formally and informally).

Perhaps I should have used the word "can" instead of "do" in my initial response - as NotWise rightly points out, there are no authorities here

In formal writing, I know its meaning is, "something is missing" from a quotation.