I know I’m going to regret putting my two cents in, but since the thread is here, I might as well.
It’s been bugging me lately that some posters, and I didn’t make note of their names so I’m not calling anyone out, have been using just one dash and no spaces between phrases, e.g.: “My Tivo sometimes freezes up on me-anyone know why this might be?” That just looks like a hyphenated word. Instead, it should be three dashes, or at least two, with spaces between the dashes and the words, like Baldwin did in post #9.
Delly, I see lots of spelling errors and it’s difficult to recall anyone being called out individually on them. Some people are good spellers, some aren’t. Don’t sweat it. The important thing is to get your thoughts across in a cogent manner and you seem to do that quite nicely. Most members of this board are able to read through the odd spelling error without jumping on the writer.
My problem (and I see this often ) is typing errors. These are obvious and everyone does it at some time or other. I am forever mixing my t’s and y’s. Who decided to put them right next to each other anyway? :dubious:
When I read this post, I started singing the song. Ya know Peter, Paul and Mary?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
(Waves lighter in the air) Whoo hoo!!! Rock on!
As one of the worst spellers and a regular poster of grammatical errors (I had better things to do in school, there was Dope to be smoked!) I just want to say:
“me spel gooder now cuz i be a dohper”.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled “Grammar Nazi” thread.
Ugh. No. A dash is two hyphens. At least that’s the conventional representation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen–although I may be wrong–more than two hyphens used to indicate an interruption in thought. Although the completely proper way to do it is to use the em dash, which is alt+0151 on PCs. So, with our example sentence: My Tivo sometimes freezes up on me—anyone know why this might be?
Then there’s also the en dash, alt+0150. This is generally used to indicate ranges, as in the numbers 1–10, or the years 1983–7. In this particular font, it’s not as noticeable as others, but in order of horizontal length, from shortest to longest, is hyphen, en dash, em dash.
Hmm…weird. In the reply box, the en dash was actually longer than the hyphen, but in the posted reply, the en dash came out the same length as the hyphen.
I just previewed and, sure enough, the en dash is indeed replaced by the hyphen upon posting. Oh well.
See, this is why one should never correct anyone else’s spelling, grammar or usage. I said “dash” but I meant “hyphen.” And on further thought, I’m not sure spaces are necessary either.
The general rule is not to use spaces between letters and dashes, although differing styles may allow for spaces. I think they’re overkill with long dashes like the em dash.
This Year Models’s hyphen with a space style is something I’ve seen of late, except with en dashes, not hyphens. I personally don’t think single hyphens should ever be used for breaks in thought, but if you must use them, surround them with spaces.
I was just researching a recipe on a site that said to make the “suace”, then to dip pieces of chicken in the “sause.” And how did it say to remove the pieces? Why, with a pair of thongs, of course.
