Birbla

Comments

Hacker News

Troglodyte here... I never use em dashes, never use semicolons, overuse ellipses and commas.

by icedchai

LLMs abuse em-dashes by putting them in places where a comma would be more appropriate. Especially as the separator before the last item in a list (in place of an "Oxford comma"). Classic LLM-speak em-dash mistreatment is something like, "This design brings performance, power — and speed."

They also like to use em-dashes excessively, especially in bulleted lists, to separate a topic from a comment in each list item.

Avoid those and you're fine. They aren't good writing style anyway. Used well, em-dashes are good!

by rafram

Em dashes—if properly used—are really useful.

They help convey that I am so smart—and I think so fast—that I have to constantly interrupt myself.

But—and I think this is important—it’s really easy to overuse them.

by snowwrestler

Funny - the ChatGPT app on mac uses a font that doesn't differentiate between any dash.

I use dashes in place of commas, semicolons, colons, and brackets all the time - I just use the standard keyboard dash. Why the heck should I bother learning some stupid key combination to make the dash longer? I highly doubt that the vast majority of readers even know that there are different dashes with different uses. When I learned about it, I decided to be a conscientious objector because using - vs — and assuming I can tell the difference is inane (because it is font based).

(ironically, the HN text editing dialog shows - as ~.8 of the length of — whereas on the site it shows as ~.25 of —)

by anonthrownaway

Test: 'There is no greater joy in life than typing a sentence, realising it needs a clarification, a caveat, an addendum, but in the same sentence, not a new one, and, guess what, the comma is right there for you. You want to package things neatly together, and the comma lets you do exactly this. Commas make writing feel like you are assembling lego bricks.'

I like using commas for spacing though em dashes do the same thing and avoid the run-on police?

by koolala

You might think em dashes are amazing—but there is something three times better⸻the "three-em dash" (U+2E3B).

Why this thing exists, I do not know. Unicode people seem to like making bad decisions, like Han unification and emoji sprawl.

by usui

One of the more memorable and influential library finds for me was an article in _Advertising Age_ which enumerated all of the special characters which should be set so as to accurately communicate, so in addition to en and em dashes it noted:

- − (minus symbol) for use in math equations or to indicate a negative

- I believe it also noted that there were two forms for the hyphen, normal and discretionary

- × (multiplication symbol) for use in dimensions and when actually indicating multiplication

- ′ and ″ (single and double primes) for use when indicating feet and inches, or minutes and seconds

- it also made explicit the difference between º (ordinal o) and ° (degree symbol) and noted when to make use of the other ordinals

- … while available as a special character, it is often better to construct this using suitably sized non-breaking spaces

- © ® ™ ℠ ℗ (copyright and so forth) to indicate such legal constructs as appropriate

- the various spaces en and em space, non-breaking flex space, &c.

I _think_ I still have a photocopy somewhere, but really should find a copy of the actual magazine....

The far more egregious and reprehensible thing is that many books now are published using quite pedestrian typing of the near equivalents from the keyboard as opposed to actually typing the correct signs.

I wrote a bit on this at:

https://tug.org/texshowcase/onetype.pdf

(note that it intended to be printed, folded, cut in the center, then re-folded so as to make a "hot dog" booklet: https://www.makingbooks.com/hotdog.shtml )

EDIT: That said, folks should be sure to get:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41600.The_Mac_is_Not_a_T...

or

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/358248.The_PC_is_Not_a_T...

by WillAdams

Author failed to explain the dash universe and their semantic assignments.

- em dash: adjoining thought (Hey, so — <declaration>)

- en dash: expresses a range (1–100)

- dash: compounds word-parts (Sarbanes-Oxley)

I'd also like to see more concise philosophy around em v. ellipsis, "limerance" is poetic (and ironically antithetical to this "essay" … and what of parens?). In short, em is communication and ellipsis is personal.

I offer this feedback as a humorously offended fan of all sidecar prose (dash, ellipsis, parens, quotes, and meta typographical treatments) pre-AI era.

Finally, I'd love to hear from this author regarding modern use of period in modern comunication, with canonical use-case of bulleted list as example.

by douglee650

Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

Sign in
  • Hacker News
  • Troglodyte here... I never use em dashes, never use semicolons, overuse ellipses and commas.
    by icedchai
  • LLMs abuse em-dashes by putting them in places where a comma would be more appropriate. Especially as the separator before the last item in a list (in place of an "Oxford comma"). Classic LLM-speak em-dash mistreatment is something like, "This design brings performance, power — and speed."

    They also like to use em-dashes excessively, especially in bulleted lists, to separate a topic from a comment in each list item.

    Avoid those and you're fine. They aren't good writing style anyway. Used well, em-dashes are good!

    by rafram
  • Em dashes—if properly used—are really useful.

    They help convey that I am so smart—and I think so fast—that I have to constantly interrupt myself.

    But—and I think this is important—it’s really easy to overuse them.

    by snowwrestler
  • Funny - the ChatGPT app on mac uses a font that doesn't differentiate between any dash.

    I use dashes in place of commas, semicolons, colons, and brackets all the time - I just use the standard keyboard dash. Why the heck should I bother learning some stupid key combination to make the dash longer? I highly doubt that the vast majority of readers even know that there are different dashes with different uses. When I learned about it, I decided to be a conscientious objector because using - vs — and assuming I can tell the difference is inane (because it is font based).

    (ironically, the HN text editing dialog shows - as ~.8 of the length of — whereas on the site it shows as ~.25 of —)

    by anonthrownaway
  • Test: 'There is no greater joy in life than typing a sentence, realising it needs a clarification, a caveat, an addendum, but in the same sentence, not a new one, and, guess what, the comma is right there for you. You want to package things neatly together, and the comma lets you do exactly this. Commas make writing feel like you are assembling lego bricks.'

    I like using commas for spacing though em dashes do the same thing and avoid the run-on police?

    by koolala
  • You might think em dashes are amazing—but there is something three times better⸻the "three-em dash" (U+2E3B).

    Why this thing exists, I do not know. Unicode people seem to like making bad decisions, like Han unification and emoji sprawl.

    by usui
  • One of the more memorable and influential library finds for me was an article in _Advertising Age_ which enumerated all of the special characters which should be set so as to accurately communicate, so in addition to en and em dashes it noted:

    - − (minus symbol) for use in math equations or to indicate a negative

    - I believe it also noted that there were two forms for the hyphen, normal and discretionary

    - × (multiplication symbol) for use in dimensions and when actually indicating multiplication

    - ′ and ″ (single and double primes) for use when indicating feet and inches, or minutes and seconds

    - it also made explicit the difference between º (ordinal o) and ° (degree symbol) and noted when to make use of the other ordinals

    - … while available as a special character, it is often better to construct this using suitably sized non-breaking spaces

    - © ® ™ ℠ ℗ (copyright and so forth) to indicate such legal constructs as appropriate

    - the various spaces en and em space, non-breaking flex space, &c.

    I _think_ I still have a photocopy somewhere, but really should find a copy of the actual magazine....

    The far more egregious and reprehensible thing is that many books now are published using quite pedestrian typing of the near equivalents from the keyboard as opposed to actually typing the correct signs.

    I wrote a bit on this at:

    https://tug.org/texshowcase/onetype.pdf

    (note that it intended to be printed, folded, cut in the center, then re-folded so as to make a "hot dog" booklet: https://www.makingbooks.com/hotdog.shtml )

    EDIT: That said, folks should be sure to get:

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41600.The_Mac_is_Not_a_T...

    or

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/358248.The_PC_is_Not_a_T...

    by WillAdams
  • Author failed to explain the dash universe and their semantic assignments.

    - em dash: adjoining thought (Hey, so — <declaration>)

    - en dash: expresses a range (1–100)

    - dash: compounds word-parts (Sarbanes-Oxley)

    I'd also like to see more concise philosophy around em v. ellipsis, "limerance" is poetic (and ironically antithetical to this "essay" … and what of parens?). In short, em is communication and ellipsis is personal.

    I offer this feedback as a humorously offended fan of all sidecar prose (dash, ellipsis, parens, quotes, and meta typographical treatments) pre-AI era.

    Finally, I'd love to hear from this author regarding modern use of period in modern comunication, with canonical use-case of bulleted list as example.

    by douglee650