En and Em dashes

[Steve Hayes]

I am editing a text in which the house style requires em and en dashes tyo be
inserted in certain places.

The Help file describes how to set the Autocorrect function to nsert these
while typing, but it does not say how to insert these into already-typed text.

In the insert Symbol tables, it is not clear which symbols are em dashes and
which are en dashes.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

When you select a symbol in the Symbol dialog, look in the bottom left
corner for a description of the selected symbol. FWIW, in Unicode fonts, the
en dash is U2013 and the em dash is U2014. There are numerous ways to insert
these, but I find the most satisfactory is to assign a keyboard shortcut to
each, such as Ctrl+Shift+N (or Ctrl+Alt+N) for the en dash and Ctrl+Shift+M
(or Ctrl+Alt+M) for the em dash. I use the ones with Shift for the dashes
and the ones with Alt for en and em spaces, but if you aren't using the
spaces, you might prefer to use Alt for the dashes because Ctrl+Shift+N/M
are by default assigned to other functions in Word that you may not want to
override.

Another way to insert these dashes (or any other Unicode character) is to
type the character number, select it, and press Alt+X, but of course that
requires you to know the character number. There are also built-in shortcut
keys for both en and em dashes:

En dash: Ctrl+Num - (that is, the Ctrl key with the minus sign on the
numeric keypad)

Em dash: Alt+Ctrl+Num -

If your keyboard has a separate numeric keypad that is easy to access, you
might want to use these. I assigned my personal shortcuts in the years when
I didn't have easy access to the numeric keypad (and, to tell the truth,
wouldn't want to be reaching over there every time I want a dash, anyway).

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Steve Hayes]

When you select a symbol in the Symbol dialog, look in the bottom left
corner for a description of the selected symbol. FWIW, in Unicode fonts, the
en dash is U2013 and the em dash is U2014. There are numerous ways to insert
these, but I find the most satisfactory is to assign a keyboard shortcut to
each, such as Ctrl+Shift+N (or Ctrl+Alt+N) for the en dash and Ctrl+Shift+M
(or Ctrl+Alt+M) for the em dash. I use the ones with Shift for the dashes
and the ones with Alt for en and em spaces, but if you aren't using the
spaces, you might prefer to use Alt for the dashes because Ctrl+Shift+N/M
are by default assigned to other functions in Word that you may not want to
override.

Thanks very much.

 

[Alls Quiet]

Thanks very much.

Why not assign the Function keys to en- or em- dash if you use these
characters frequently? I have been doing that for fifteen years--
choosing my most frequently used symbols or commands and re-assigning
them to Function keys.

Just a thought. I'm still lost as to the distinction between en and em
dashes, and have made an em dash my default choice.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

An en dash is used two ways. In U.S. English, it is used as a substitute for
"to" in series of numbers ("pages 10-13"), game scores ("They won 13-2"),
geographic designations ("the New York-Boston flight"), and similar
situations, as well as in compounds where one member of the compound is more
than one word or is already hyphenated, such as "United States-related,"
"New York-based," and the like.

In U.K. English, in addition to those usages, an en dash with a space either
side is used where U.S. writers would use an em dash to indicate a break in
the thought of a sentence. Spaced en dashes are often found separating
run-in headings from text and other similar uses.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Thanks very much.

Why not assign the Function keys to en- or em- dash if you use these
characters frequently? I have been doing that for fifteen years--
choosing my most frequently used symbols or commands and re-assigning
them to Function keys.

Just a thought. I'm still lost as to the distinction between en and em
dashes, and have made an em dash my default choice.

 

[Alls Quiet]

An en dash is used two ways. In U.S. English, it is used as a substitute for
"to" in series of numbers ("pages 10-13"), game scores ("They won 13-2"),
geographic designations ("the New York-Boston flight"), and similar
situations, as well as in compounds where one member of the compound is more
than one word or is already hyphenated, such as "United States-related,"
"New York-based," and the like.

Then is an en dash the equivalent--or even the exact same thing--as a
hyphen?

In U.K. English, in addition to those usages, an en dash with a space either
side is used where U.S. writers would use an em dash to indicate a break in
the thought of a sentence. Spaced en dashes are often found separating
run-in headings from text and other similar uses.

What is a run-in heading? I truly don't know.

Thanks for your continuing help.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

No, it is not. I can't use an actual en OR em dash in this plain text post,
but you have to imagine en dashes in the examples I gave. Hyphens are used
to break words at the ends of lines and in hyphenated compounds. An en dash
is longer than a hyphen, and an em dash is longer than an en dash. Although
someone will doubtless contradict me (since the actual appearance of the
character depends on the font), I was taught that an en dash is the width of
a capital N and an em dash the width of a capital M; at least that's where
they get their names.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

An en dash is used two ways. In U.S. English, it is used as a substitute
for
"to" in series of numbers ("pages 10-13"), game scores ("They won 13-2"),
geographic designations ("the New York-Boston flight"), and similar
situations, as well as in compounds where one member of the compound is
more
than one word or is already hyphenated, such as "United States-related,"
"New York-based," and the like.

Then is an en dash the equivalent--or even the exact same thing--as a
hyphen?

In U.K. English, in addition to those usages, an en dash with a space
either
side is used where U.S. writers would use an em dash to indicate a break
in
the thought of a sentence. Spaced en dashes are often found separating
run-in headings from text and other similar uses.

What is a run-in heading? I truly don't know.

Thanks for your continuing help.

 

[Steve Hayes]

No, it is not. I can't use an actual en OR em dash in this plain text post,
but you have to imagine en dashes in the examples I gave. Hyphens are used
to break words at the ends of lines and in hyphenated compounds. An en dash
is longer than a hyphen, and an em dash is longer than an en dash. Although
someone will doubtless contradict me (since the actual appearance of the
character depends on the font), I was taught that an en dash is the width of
a capital N and an em dash the width of a capital M; at least that's where
they get their names.

That's right, and where they are used in the text depends on the house style
of the publisher, or the whims of the author in unpublished documents.

 

[Alls Quiet]

That's right, and where they are used in the text depends on the house style
of the publisher, or the whims of the author in unpublished documents.

Wow, I truly did not know there was a difference between an en dash
and a hyphen. I suppose this leads me to my next quibble (because--at
least to my eye--there is no discernible difference between the two).
If I type an ellipses, Autotext automatically re-spaces it to add
additional space between the three Periods.

Once an editor (1996) told me this was "wrong"; ellipses should be
foreshortened, for lack of a better term, he said. So I'd backspace or
whatever operation is necessary to undo the extra Autotext spacing.

Along came Adobe Reader's read-it-aloud feature. When "Anna" reads
aloud ellipses I have removed the Autotext extra spacing from (to
create three periods in a row), "Anna" actually reads "Sally and Dick
and Jane walked up the hill Dot Dot Dot" (as in "Sally and Dick and
Jane walked up the hill...") But when I use Autotext ellipses ("Sally
and Dick and Jane walked up the hill . . ."), "Anna" doesn't read the
Dot Dot Dot.

Again, when the editor (major NYC publishing house) told me this, I
assumed it was gospel. And in regard to the en dash/hyphen question, I
was told there was no difference. Anyway, thanks to both of you folks.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What the publisher told you may have had to do with the manuscript format
the publishing house wanted to receive, based on how their software would
deal with the file. There are many such limitations (often a tremendous
hardship for Word users), such as wanting all the footnotes or endnotes in a
separate file. I have known publishers to require two hyphens to represent
an en dash and three for an em dash; again, that was for the convenience of
their conversion software.

In traditional typesetting, an ellipsis is set as individual periods with
spaces (possibly thin ones) between. In Word you can reproduce this by using
a space before and after the periods and nonbreaking spaces between them
(this is actually superior to an ellipsis in some ways because the ellipsis
character is nonbreaking, which is often inconvenient). Periods with no
spaces between are too close together; periods with ordinary spaces may look
too spacey.

And the instructions may well have been intended for monospaced fonts, where
periods with no spaces would be spaced appropriately, and if the
instructions were intended for a typewriter, then of course there is no en
dash (so a hyphen must be used), and two hyphens are used to represent an em
dash. FWIW, when I was a typist (before I moved to computers), I always used
the half-backspace key to back up and overstrike the two hyphens to make
them continuous--just one of many refinements (such as changing typeballs
for italics and special characters) that gave me a competitive edge in a
typewriter world. <g>

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

That's right, and where they are used in the text depends on the house
style
of the publisher, or the whims of the author in unpublished documents.

Wow, I truly did not know there was a difference between an en dash
and a hyphen. I suppose this leads me to my next quibble (because--at
least to my eye--there is no discernible difference between the two).
If I type an ellipses, Autotext automatically re-spaces it to add
additional space between the three Periods.

Once an editor (1996) told me this was "wrong"; ellipses should be
foreshortened, for lack of a better term, he said. So I'd backspace or
whatever operation is necessary to undo the extra Autotext spacing.

Along came Adobe Reader's read-it-aloud feature. When "Anna" reads
aloud ellipses I have removed the Autotext extra spacing from (to
create three periods in a row), "Anna" actually reads "Sally and Dick
and Jane walked up the hill Dot Dot Dot" (as in "Sally and Dick and
Jane walked up the hill...") But when I use Autotext ellipses ("Sally
and Dick and Jane walked up the hill . . ."), "Anna" doesn't read the
Dot Dot Dot.

Again, when the editor (major NYC publishing house) told me this, I
assumed it was gospel. And in regard to the en dash/hyphen question, I
was told there was no difference. Anyway, thanks to both of you folks.