Subj : Christian Fellowship
To   : Ky Moffet
From : Barry Martin
Date : Wed Sep 25 2024 07:18:00


Hi Ky!

 >The double hyphen (--) is
 > translated to a long hyphen by LibreOffice.
 KM> Actually, no. It's not translated into an m-dash, as one would
 KM> expect, but into an n-dash, used by absolutely no one for
 KM> absolutely nothing.

(Who would have thought a discussion of dashes outside of running!)

I sort of recall the 'm-dash', not an 'n-dash' -- and only heard of the 
m-dash in the past few years.  Something I haven't (yet) incorporated 
into my vocabulary.


 KM> Another weirdness is that the -- to n-dash only works if there's
 KM> a space to either side, which is fine for some things but not how
 KM> book publishing wants it.
 
(So how does book publishing desire?)  I do the space-dash-dash-space 
thing: to me looks better and conveys the usage.  A dash (meaning 
hyphen) without a space (to me) implies the word is hyphenated: as in  
'non-stop'.  A space-hyphen-space implies a brief pause, semi-colon-ish,
but a semi-colon is a hare longer and attaches two similar and sort of 
continuous thoughts whereas the hyphen is sort of like a pause for a 
inhalation.  

(Wonder how I'm doing? A non-technical English speaker trying to 
descibe punctuation  to someone who is well-versed in it!)


 KM> The problem is that there's no real standard for m-dash (there
 KM> are three different codes in RTF, and gods know how LibreOffice's
 KM> XML handles it), however there is a standard for n-dash. So
 KM> that's what it uses, unless you paste in a proper m-dash or have
 KM> it assigned as a special character. It may be *calling* an
 KM> m-dash, but it is an n-dash. (About a third to half shorter than
 KM> an m-dash, but about double the length of a hyphen.)

I would half-guess if someone like a programmer were to select a 
punctuation mark he would slect the one with a standard behind it, so 
the folks at LibreOffice accidentally selected the wrong dash style. 



 KM> In fact now that I think of it, I need to see if I can change the
 KM> autocorrect so it'll give me a proper m-dash. Or make it 3
 KM> hyphens.
 
Three hyphens means a tadline is coming up!

LibreOffice (and so probably other word processors) has a search-and- 
replace function: ^H.  (You're welcome Mike!)


 KM> Otherwise I have to keep another document open, with a real
 KM> m-dash, that I can copy and paste from as needed.
 
You are going to figure out that auto-correct real soon: all that manual
copy/paste will get old and hand-crampy quickly!

                     ¯                                 ®
                      ¯  BarryMartin3@MyMetronet.NET  ®
                     ¯                                 ®


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