jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (07/06/89)
In article <65479@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)) writes: [ help with someone else's problem...] | BTW, you might want to look at the actual text being used in this memo and | compare it what the LaTeX book says about various typographical conventions. | For example, read the LaTeX book's discussion of where to use n-dashes (--) | and where to use m-dashes (---). OK, I've wondered for a long time, now I'm going to ask. Should em-dashes have surrounding spaces or "bump-up" against the surrounding words? (1) This might be correct --- but is it? (2) This might be correct---but is it? So which is correct, and why? -- Jim Wright jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
stevens@hsi.UUCP (Richard Stevens) (07/06/89)
In article <1168@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes: > > OK, I've wondered for a long time, now I'm going to ask. Should em-dashes > have surrounding spaces or "bump-up" against the surrounding words? The "Chicago Manual of Style" says in Section 2.70 that an em-dash within a sentence should *not* have spaces around it. Looking at a couple of random books (Knuth's TEX Book, Webster's 9th Collegiate, 4.3BSD book) shows this rule to be followed by most authors. Richard Stevens Health Systems International, New Haven, CT stevens@hsi.com ... { uunet | yale } ! hsi ! stevens
Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) (07/06/89)
In article <1168@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff (Jim Wright) writes: > > OK, I've wondered for a long time, now I'm going to ask. Should em-dashes > have surrounding spaces or "bump-up" against the surrounding words? > > (1) This might be correct --- but is it? > (2) This might be correct---but is it? > > So which is correct, and why? The second---by convention, I suppose. It looks much better. Besides, no other punctuation marks are separated by spaces from the surrounding words. Even if you were to use the spaces, though, you should do it thus: This is incorrect~--- but better than Sentence~(1) above, as it will never leave the dash at the beginning of a line. In net.typing, I use two hyphens for the em dash (and the en dash), which is conventional for monospaced text. --Scott Scott Horne Hacker-in-Chief, Yale CS Dept Facility horne@cs.Yale.edu ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne Home: 203 789-0877 SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 Work: 203 432-6428 Summer residence: 175 Dwight St, New Haven, CT Dare I speak for the amorphous gallimaufry of intellectual thought called Yale?
leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter) (07/06/89)
In article <1168@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes... >In article <65479@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)) writes: > [ help with someone else's problem...] >| BTW, you might want to look at the actual text being used in this memo and >| compare it what the LaTeX book says about various typographical conventions. >| For example, read the LaTeX book's discussion of where to use n-dashes (--) >| and where to use m-dashes (---). > >OK, I've wondered for a long time, now I'm going to ask. Should em-dashes >have surrounding spaces or "bump-up" against the surrounding words? > >(1) This might be correct --- but is it? >(2) This might be correct---but is it? > >So which is correct, and why? > >-- >Jim Wright >jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu I've wondered about this myself - and I've never been able to find any hard and fast rule on the matter. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style has two pages discussing the use of dashes of various sorts, but never mentions the issue of spacing for em-dashes. All the examples they give use no spaces before or after. The TeXbook doesn't say anything about it; the LaTeXbook says that spaces should NOT appear (page 14). Neither uses spaces. On the other hand, I have seen texts, which seem to be set to high typographi- cal standards, which DO use spaces before and after em-dashes. (I can't think of any off-hand, though.) One book on typography that I have handy (Brady's "Using Type Right") - says that in a well-designed font, an em-dash should have a built in "shoulder" to keep it from touching the adjoining letters. This is not the case in some fonts; Brady advises that the compositor should add a thin space before and after in this case. BTW, the CMR em-dash is designed "correctly" according to this criterion. On the other hand, the font used in the Chicago Manual of Style seems pretty marginal to me. (In the 13th Edition, take a look at the first example in Section 5.83.) So...the concensus seems to be "no spaces". The rules on this sort of stuff can be pretty arbitrary. For example, there seems to be universal agreement that an ellipsis should be treated as a word, with normal word spacing before and after. Why the difference? I'd have expected that, if anything, you could get away with LESS space around an ellipsis than around an em-dash, since you have some much white above and around those little dots to begin with. One thing to keep in mind is that, for economic reasons, typographical con- ventions will usually be biased toward the smallest spacing possible, at least for running text. (Headings and such are a different issue, but they have a lesser, (trivial for something like a book), influence on over-all text length.) Any good text on typography will tell you that you should first learn the rules so that when - not if! - you later break them, you understand what you are doing. It's probably hard to come up with ANY typographical rule which cannot be constructively broken - though for some you'd really have to search hard for an example! Finally, I'll confess that I personally put spaces around CMR em-dashes. I started off doing it without thinking - I just copied my normal ASCII conven- tions without realizing what I was doing. Later, I started wondering, and checked some references. (Curiously, I never noticed the line in the LaTeX- book before.) When all was said and done, however, em-dashes with spaces around them just look cleaner and more open to me; em-dashes without spaces look crowded. -- Jerry
Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) (07/08/89)
In article <65590@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>, leichter@CS (Jerry Leichter) writes: > In article <1168@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes... > >In article <65479@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)) writes: > > One book on typography that I have handy (Brady's "Using Type Right") - says > that in a well-designed font, an em-dash should have a built in "shoulder" > to keep it from touching the adjoining letters. This is not the case in some > fonts; Brady advises that the compositor should add a thin space before and > after in this case. Yes, but the space generated by the space character in TeX is *much* too thick. I've seen en dashes with surrounding spaces used as em dashes, but that's not attractive, either. Do it this way---and no other. > BTW, the CMR em-dash is designed "correctly" according > to this criterion. On the other hand, the font used in the Chicago Manual > of Style seems pretty marginal to me. (In the 13th Edition, take a look at > the first example in Section 5.83.) Correct on both points. > The rules on this sort of stuff can be pretty arbitrary. For example, there > seems to be universal agreement that an ellipsis should be treated as a word, > with normal word spacing before and after. Why the difference? I'd have > expected that, if anything, you could get away with LESS space around an > ellipsis than around an em-dash, since you have some much white above and > around those little dots to begin with. An ellipsis causes more of a semantic break than an em dash. It deserves more space, but one may use less than word spacing around it. Besides, the length of the em dash makes the spaces around it unattractive. This is why an en dash looks better with surrounding spaces than an em dash (as mentioned above). (But I'm still not suggesting that you use an en dash between spaces as an em dash.) > One thing to keep in mind is that, for economic reasons, typographical con- > ventions will usually be biased toward the smallest spacing possible, at > least for running text. (Headings and such are a different issue, but they > have a lesser, (trivial for something like a book), influence on over-all > text length.) Yes, but that's not the reason here. > Finally, I'll confess that I personally put spaces around CMR em-dashes. I > started off doing it without thinking - I just copied my normal ASCII conven- > tions without realizing what I was doing. Later, I started wondering, and > checked some references. (Curiously, I never noticed the line in the LaTeX- > book before.) When all was said and done, however, em-dashes with spaces > around them just look cleaner and more open to me; em-dashes without spaces > look crowded. Then at least do this: I want to use an em dash~--- right here. You don't want word spacing, anyway. An ellipsis represents *words*; a dash doesn't. Why, then, should a dash be given so much space--and a varying amount? Try thin spaces. --Scott Scott Horne Hacker-in-Chief, Yale CS Dept Facility horne@cs.Yale.edu ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne Home: 203 789-0877 SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 Work: 203 432-6428 Summer residence: 175 Dwight St, New Haven, CT Dare I speak for the amorphous gallimaufry of intellectual thought called Yale?
leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter) (07/08/89)
Scott Horne makes a number of responses to my comments on spacing around em-dashes. I think there's little to be gained by answering point by point, since at least some of what both of us have said is clearly taste, and we disagree, and other could be debated forever (is an ellipsis really more of a "semantic break" than a dash? I think I could find examples supporting either side of the argument.) As to whether to tie the em-dash to the preceeding word: I should think that depends on meaning. In a heading, the dash might look a lot better at the beginning of the following line than lost at the end of the previous one. The title of my disseration is of the form "Description -- Explanation", and when broken as Description -- Explanation makes more sense, since it makes "Explanation" a kind of subitem. Or, again -- here's an example -- perhaps it looks better if you can see the entire "dashed off" section on one line, rather than leaving a lone dash at the end of the previous. In summary: I think you have to decide this on a case-by- case basis. (In fact, NEITHER is particularly good, and except where they are really unavoidable, as in some headings, I view linebreaks at em-dashes as something to fix up during proofreading.) In any case, I mentioned in my posting that I had seen examples of typography with spaces around em-dashes, but that I couldn't name any off-hand. Well, it turns out that I had an example sitting right beside me - but I didn't notice it until today. Take a look at the New York Times. It uses a significant amount of space around em-dashes. It's difficult to tell exactly how much, but it looks very much like an inter-word space to me. -- Jerry
lee@anduk.co.uk (Liam R. Quin) (07/09/89)
Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes: > leichter@CS (Jerry Leichter) writes: >> jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes... >> leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter (LEICHTER-JERRY@CS.YALE.EDU)) writes: [various points about em dashes in fonts] Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford (I have the 39th edition), has the following to say about dashes: [p.43] Em rules or dashes---in this and the next line an example is given---are often used to show that words enclosed between them are to be treated parenthetically. An example is given. They are considered by Hart's to be on the same semantic level as (parentheses) and ... ellipses. Also, [p.155] (d) indicates that the em dash and hyphen should be treated in the same way as regards spacing. Hart's does not give any special indication about breaking a line before or after an em dash, although some publishers do have strong feelings on this subject. One might also conclude from p. 155 (d) that it is better to break a line after a dash rather than before, but I have seen both practices used. It is not usual to emply a space greater than a thin either side of an em dash, at any rate in England, as far as I can tell. There are a few books where an en or word space is used, but these often turn out to have been set by the author. >I've seen en dashes with surrounding spaces used as em dashes, but that's not >attractive, either. Do it this way---and no other. Hart's explicitly forbids this! Also, there should be no dash after a colon; so you can't do:- that. >> Finally, I'll confess that I personally put spaces around CMR em-dashes. I >> started off doing it without thinking - I just copied my normal ASCII conven- >> tions without realizing what I was doing. Later, I started wondering, and >> checked some references. (Curiously, I never noticed the line in the LaTeX- >> book before.) When all was said and done, however, em-dashes with spaces >> around them just look cleaner and more open to me; em-dashes without spaces >> look crowded. > >Then at least do this: > I want to use an em dash~--- right here. Or, for some publishers, > I want to use an em dash ---~right here. Perhaps you should train TeX to ignore the spaces, and to treat only the appropriate end(s) of the --- as possible break points. I don't know TeX well enough to do this. Lee (uunet!utai!anduk.uucp!lee) -- Lee Russell Quin, Unixsys UK Ltd, The Genesis Centre, Birchwood, Warrington, ENGLAND, WA3 7BH; Tel. +44 925 828181, Fax +44 925 827834 lee%anduk.uucp@ai.toronto.edu; {utzoo,uunet}!utai!anduk!lee UK: uu.warwick.ac.uk!anduk.co.uk!lee
Allen@brownvm.brown.edu (Allen Renear) (07/10/89)
The use of a short dash with surrounding spaces as a graphic rendition of the punctuational dash is well-established, and quite respectable. In an article on markup systems in the Nov 1987 CACM we (Coombs, DeRose, Renear) refer to this style of dash as the "Cambridge dash" and to the standard em dash (with no surrounding spaces) as the "Oxford dash" -- as the first is Cambridge University Press house style and the second is Oxford University Press house style. The Times (NY) as someone pointed out is another very handy example, see also Prentice Hall, Addison-Wesley, and others. What is important is that the coding of a punctuational dash is independent of its intended graphic rendition. Let the designers design, and let these designs be implemented in the macros -- but keep the source file semantically rich, and design, device, and software independent. Allen Renear, Computing and Information Services / Brown University / (401) 863-7312
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (07/11/89)
I thought I was figuring this out. The style of usage for em-dashes is (apparently) a matter of taste. And I was ready to change my old habit of providing spaces. Then this... In article <28@nx32s.anduk.co.uk> lee@nx32s.UUCP (0000-Liam R. Quin) writes: | Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes: | > leichter@CS (Jerry Leichter) writes: | | Hart's Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford | (I have the 39th edition), has the following to say about dashes: | [p.43] Em rules or dashes---in this and the next line an | example is given---are often used to show that words | enclosed between them are to be treated parenthetically. [...] | >I've seen en dashes with surrounding spaces used as em dashes, but that's not | >attractive, either. Do it this way---and no other. | Hart's explicitly forbids this! But didn't you just imply above that Hart uses this method?!?! Perhaps you're thinking of the manner in which it is used and not the way it is set on the page? | They [em-dashes] are considered by Hart's to be on the same | semantic level as (parentheses) and ... ellipses. And how about a new can of worms? :-) Let's talk about ellipses. Is there only one way to set them? It seems they have two uses: to indicate an uncompleted thought or truncated quote, or to indicate the absence of text. In the first case, I leave no space between the ellipse and the text. I don't use the second case often, but apparently the ellipse ought to have space on both sides. Correct? Am I leaving something out? Does anyone have suggestions on a reference as to how to use and typeset the English language? It seems I could use one. :-) -- Jim Wright jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) (07/12/89)
In article <1188@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>, jwright@atanasoff (Jim Wright) writes: > > | They [em-dashes] are considered by Hart's to be on the same > | semantic level as (parentheses) and ... ellipses. > > And how about a new can of worms? :-) Let's talk about ellipses. Is > there only one way to set them? It seems they have two uses: to > indicate an uncompleted thought or truncated quote, or to indicate the > absence of text. In the first case, I leave no space between the ellipse > and the text. I don't use the second case often, but apparently the > ellipse ought to have space on both sides. Correct? Yes, correct. For example, Jim Wright writes, ``Let's talk about ellipses.... Is there only one way to set them?... [T]hey have two uses: to indicate an uncompleted thought ..., or to indicate the absence of text.'' Alas, alack.... --Scott Scott Horne Hacker-in-Chief, Yale CS Dept Facility horne@cs.Yale.edu ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne Home: 203 789-0877 SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 Work: 203 432-6428 Summer residence: 175 Dwight St, New Haven, CT Dare I speak for the amorphous gallimaufry of intellectual thought called Yale?
dave@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Dave Stuit) (07/16/89)
In article <65741@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> leichter@CS.YALE.EDU (Jerry Leichter) writes: >In any case, I mentioned in my posting that I had seen examples of typography >with spaces around em-dashes, but that I couldn't name any off-hand. Well, it >turns out that I had an example sitting right beside me - but I didn't notice >it until today. Take a look at the New York Times. It uses a significant >amount of space around em-dashes. It's difficult to tell exactly how much, >but it looks very much like an inter-word space to me. This illustrates a point someone brought up earlier -- that conventional rules frequently are broken when there's a "good reason." Newspaper typography is one area in which this is the case. The narrow columns used in newspapers make it difficult to enforce rigid typesetting conventions without producing some really ugly-looking copy. The problem, in many cases, is compounded by equipment that fails to do all of the fine-tuning that a system such as TeX does. (As a side note, I'll mention that TeX sucks at justifying text in narrow columns. Its unwillingness to allow minor imperfections in a paragraph occasionally lead it to give up completely, producing absurd results. I know little about TeX, but several people who knew much more were unable to fix this by monkeying with tolerances and such. TeX may do a nice job on full-width reports, but on narrow columns, it can't compare to a simple line-by-line justifier (like troff). Then again, maybe it just takes someone with a Ph.D. in TeXography to get it to work right....) Leaving spaces around an em-dash allows line breaks to be performed on either side of the dash. Also, when a line is stretched to perform full justification, the spaces around the dash provide more places over which the padding can be distributed. This flexibility is necessitated by the narrow-column format. The Associated Press Stylebook says, "Put a space on both sides of a dash in all uses except the start of a paragraph and sports agate summaries." I've always thought that the spaces made sense, because the dash is supposed to break parts of a sentence, not tie together two adjacent words (like, for example, a hyphen in a compound modifier). On the matter of ellipses: The Associated Press' convention is to treat an ellipsis as a three-letter word. However, an ellipsis may be preceded by a period: "If the words that precede an ellipsis constitute a gramatically complete sentence, either in the original or in the condensation, place a period at the end of the last word before the ellipsis. Follow it with a regular space and an ellipsis." The newspapers do what works for them, and I'd advise you, the net.reader, to do whatever works for you. Just be consistent about it. (Sorry for taking so long to get to the point.) --dave dave@jarthur.claremont.edu uunet!jarthur!dave