this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Something similar happened to me a while back. I was copying some code from a Mac to a remote Linux host. For some reason the Mac was using a thing called an “en dash”
–which is slightly longer than a regular hyphen-and was really fucking frustrating to figure out.I don't know why I'm here commenting about this, but I love type, so:
Hyphen (-): the short one, used for hyphenated words. fire-eaters. Close-up.
en-dash (–): slightly longer, traditionally the length of a lowercase"n" in the typeface. Used between for things like a timeframe. 10–11:30, August–October
em-dash (—): the longest of the three, and the length of a lowercase "m". Used as a punctuation mark to denote a side comment or to abruptly cut off a sentence. "It's a great punctuation mark—in fact I overuse it—but it's still useful." "Hey where are you going with that giant—"
I didn't bother to double check the definitions, so there might be more specific rules, but these are my rules of thumb.
Dictionary source for possible particulars: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/em-dash-en-dash-how-to-use
Ah this is nice!
Thank you. I have learned something new today!
Some mac apps have some quirks, the default note app was probably not meant for pasting code in, but when you do it changes the quotes and makes them all fancy. Drives me up the wall and there's nobody to blame but me.
I blame Steve Jobs.
Let’s dig him up and put him on trial. If it’s good enough for the pope, it’s good enough for him.
I was looking for this. Some text from webpages end up pasting that way too, even on non-mac systems, and it is utterly infuriating. Nothing I hate more than having to paste something into notepad++ so I can fix all the stupid quotes from some online tutorial that is giving you things to paste into a command prompt.
Ah, my favorite character. I abuse the hell out of the em-dash.
For someone who abuses it, there is a remarkable absence of em-dashes in your comment :—)