Be dashing—and do it well

To bring some activity to this community beyond the writing club, here’s a guide on how to use dashes and hyphens. Do you use these in your own writing?

    • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      I love the emdash—I use it all the time! And ofc I always use an endash to denote ranges. My first name is hyphenated too

        • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          4·
          2 months ago

          On macos I know how to insert them using opt+hyphen (endash) and shift+opt+hyphen (emdash). I need to figure out how to get that on linux. Thankfully I think obsidian renders – and — as en dash and em dash so I use them in my notes, and typst does as well.

          If I can’t easily do it I’ll usually use – in place of an emdash and I’ll just use a hyphen for where I’d use an endash.

          I also just know the html code by heart so in placesi can use html like in markdown I’ll just use – and — (yeah… they remove the leading e to make it shorter haha)

      • Mac@mander.xyzEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        So do i—the emdash is one of my favorite characters. I never use the endash, though.

  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.netEnglish
    8·
    2 months ago

    I have the answer: do you want a dash? Type a dash.

    Which one? Idk, it’s on the keyboard, do I look like I have the fucking time for three different kinds of dashes?

    They’re little lines, and you’re alive now, not forever. Do the right thing and don’t give a fuck.

    • Ellie@slrpnk.netMEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      If you’re self editing it’s worth learning the use, even if you don’t use some of them. The en dash I’ve largely ignored myself, it doesn’t seem to be used much in fiction nowadays.