zlacker

There's an easy keyboard shortcut for it on Macs. I always saw it as a signifier of "Mac user with enough interest in writing style to use em-dashes instead of parentheses."

But I'm not on a Mac right now so I don't know how to even make a real one at the moment other than that LaTeX method.

>>majorm+(OP)
Easy is almost an understatement; it's Alt+Hyphen. [Edit: My bad that's en-dash, can't tell the difference in this monospaced text field. Em-dash you have to hold shift.]

I guess on Windows it's Alt+0,1,5,1 on a numpad. Or you copy+paste from Character Map.

>>machin+B2
To be pedantic: Opt-shift-hyphen for the em dash (longer one). Opt-hyphen only gets you an en dash.

>>e28eta+K2
…which is the appropriate character for ranges, i.e., page 1–2.

I find it a bit sad that using proper typography is now frowned upon, but it seems that ship has sailed.

>>e28eta+K2
Right, you sniped my edit. I don't know why I gave up my hn delay setting...

>>machin+B2
You can install a custom layout on Windows, like the one I made: https://typo.ale.sh/

>>9dev+K3
From the discussion with our head of communications (whose pedantry I approve of) US usage avoids spaces—like this—and should use an em-dash.

But British usage – instead – uses spaces, so an en-dash or an em-dash is acceptable.

>>e28eta+K2
One of the reasons I'm not on that page–I have a policy of using en dashes because I am lazy

>>majorm+(OP)
Not just Apple users. The compose-key does this on a variety of desktop operating systems, where the shortcut is COMPOSE - - - for em-dash, and - - . for en-dash.

>>majorm+(OP)
Another one is … instead of ...

>>Freak_+Fk
Alternatively, Compose 2 - for en dash and Compose 3 - for em dash.

>>Symbio+5e
Generally spaces around em-dashes is a question of style, not pre- or pro-scribed by any specific typographical rule. One nice middle ground is a hair space ( ), although it’s a pain to insert.

>>d1sxey+XI
> spaces around em-dashes is a question of style, not pre- or pro-scribed by any specific typographical rule

Writing and publishing style guides like Hart's Rules (Oxford Style Guide) & Chicago manual of style have the 'em' dash use as a parenthetical closed or "no spaces" dash.

In British use – Hart's Rules – writers will choose the 'en' dash with spaces as a parenthetical dash, where US writers/publishers choose the closed 'em' dash for the same thing.

Imo, there is a conflation of 'en' dash and 'em' dash going around due to the ease of smart-dashes auto-correction turning (--) into 'em' dash with the 'en' dash and non-auto-correct 'em' dash needing a key-combo.

Common everyday typing online, I think people will simply use what is convenient and "good enough" -- a single hyphen dash as an 'en' dash or 2-hyphen dashes that may or may not auto correct into an 'em' dash. I prefer mixing spaces with a 2-hyphen dash 'em' dash, but I'm not a published writer so I enjoy doing wild things like that

>>d1sxey+XI
I configured my Markdown renderer to replace ` -- ` with " — ". Hopefully those narrow spaces make it through HN's rendering — it's much easier when your tooling can do the job for you.

https://github.com/andrewaylett/aylett.co.uk/blob/d338d35a3d...

>>machin+B2
Or you've had WinCompose installed for years and type Compose+hyphen+hyphen+hyphen. — is easy to type that way. The same works for Linux with a compose key enabled, WinCompose is a program to give Windows a compose key, and comes with default sequences including those found by default in most distro's XCompose list.

>>SAI_Pe+t32
Big shout-out to WinCompose, it's the only way I found my keyboard usable while being bilingual :)