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> I've never seen them in business or personal writing, and I probably never will.

En dash is all over the place in personal/business writing, even just in email, thanks to Word and Outlook autocorrecting a hyphen to an en dash whenever it's between two spaces (rightfully in my opinion). If you've never seen it then that surely says more about what you notice than the content of what you've read.

That doesn't necessarily contradict your point – if you never notice the distinction then what's the point? But it's different from how I read the implication of your post.

(Funnily enough, without thinking, I put an en dash in the paragraph above by holding down on hyphen in the Android keyboard, and only caught myself after I did it.)

>If you've never seen it then that surely says more about what you notice than the content of what you've read.

I'll agree with this. It also brings up the point, if punctuation isn't seen - is it useful? Probably not to me - maybe yes to others.

You might not be able to pick out the bassline in many of your favorite songs but that doesn't mean you wouldn't miss it were it not there.

---

"Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are a kind of magic; their purpose is to be invisible. If the sleight of hands works, we will not notice a comma or a quotation mark but will translate each instantly into a pause or an awareness of voice [...] When the mechanics are incorrectly used, the trick is revealed and the magic fails; the reader's focus is shifted from the story to its surface."

- Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

Thank you. It seems you misread the discussion.

Following this thread, the discussion isn't about the existence or absence of punctuation. The discussion is about the case of three specific punctuation marks, which appear extremely similar if not identical. These punctuation marks are being discussed after reading an article about their differences, which are only apparent to those among us who find memorization more important than clarity.

In this exact context, the question is whether all three punctuation marks are needed when literally none of them is distinctive enough as punctuation from the other two. If you read the comment to which I had replied, you will see them also make that point.

FYI this is a pretty condescending response to come back to. From the site guidelines:

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Moving on from that.

> In this exact context, the question is whether all three punctuation marks are needed when literally none of them is distinctive enough as punctuation from the other two. If you read the comment to which I had replied, you will see them also make that point.

Indeed I did read it, I disagree.

Going back to your original comment I don't think it's reasonable that you've never seen an em-dash in "business or personal writing" but I would totally accept that you haven't noticed the punctuation in those contexts. This is partly my point, if these marks are used correctly then it makes sense you've never spotted them.

I'm saying that the people who read literature containing en and em dashes would notice the difference were they not there. I'd echo what another commenter said: these marks wouldn't be missed until they're gone but we would definitely miss them.

I wasn't expressing condescension but that you would have had a better understanding of what was being discussed after you would have read the thread. You should work at following the exact site guideline that you quoted, instead of making assumptions about my day-to-day communications and commenting about those non-existent communications.

> Going back to your original comment I don't think it's reasonable that you've never seen an em-dash in "business or personal writing" but I would totally accept that you haven't noticed the punctuation in those contexts. This is partly my point, if these marks are used correctly then it makes sense you've never spotted them.

What I was saying is that I don't see them in my day-to-day activities, which I don't. You are making assumptions about what type of communications I am involved with daily, and the types of people I communicate. I communicate with cryptographers and security professionals who all use mono-spaced text. I also communicate with C-level people who barely need to use punctuation other than a period. They have mastered brevity and communicate exceeding well.

It would make far more sense if you wrote, "I don't think it's reasonable that chownie has never seen an em-dash in business or personal writing."

The comment you're replying to makes perfect sense in exactly the context you describe, so your reply seems quite bizarre. Maybe you didn't read it properly? (See how unhelpful that tone is?)

For the analogy about not explicitly hearing the baseline, but the music still being affected by it: maybe you interpreted it just a little too directly? The analogue to removing the baseline is not the total removal all three of those punctuation marks. Instead, it's the removal of the distinction between them. I think it was pretty clear (and apt).

Quoting Erik Spiekermann “Typography is like air. We only notice it when it's bad”

> if you never notice the distinction then what's the point?

Given there is usage of en dash in the wild as you mentioned, there's a possibility this may be a case of "you don't know what you got 'til it's gone."

For someone who can quote Shakespeare [1] in a comment at the right time, you “…doth protest too much, methinks.”

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35086851

Ah, I am cut to the quick. In truth, one must sometimes be cruel to be kind. To one such as I, neither the hyphen nor the dash are a dish fit for the gods. In tragic travesty, it's all Greek to me. All that glitters isn't gold! [1]

[1] a bunch of Shakespeare's sayings scraped together, after they were trampled in a mosh pit.

> I don't care about endashes or emdashes. I've never seen them in business or personal writing, and I probably never will.

There’s an en dash in the first line of text on apple.com right now. There are en dashes, em dashes, and hyphens in the most recent press release on that site, all used correctly.

> This is way too much pedantry and hyper-hyphen-focus. Honestly, I don't care about endashes or emdashes. I've never seen them in business or personal writing, and I probably never will. They add nothing to anyone's communications.

You have definitely seen them. All professional writing outlets, like e.g. the New York Times, use em-dashes, curly quotes, and other “typographic” characters that one is supposed to use in American English.

And newspapers in my own country follow the typographical rules. Even though no one uses it in informal communication on HN or FB. (Well, some on HN do.)

Except, I didn't write I hadn't seen them. "I've never seen them in business or personal writing".

We can discuss that I chose the word "seen", when I meant "noticed", but there is no doubt that I didn't write what you intimated. I have seen the dashes in formal writing and in newspapers.

A too-hurried reading is worse than not reading at all.

Oh. So “business” does not encompass “professional writing”. Good to know.

And also not “formal writing”.

And presumably no copy-pasted message from Word or whatever other app inserts “smart”-whatever automatically.

And also not any regular old business website. (Did you think newspapers were the only ones? Just because those were the examples?)

Even for personal writing: some people even take the time to insert bullet points, so “proper” punctuation is easy for them.

You’re a fine one to complain about pedantry. (I guess yours is a just-right level of (cover your ass) pedantry.)

I was pointing out that I don't see them in my day to day activities.

You've added exactly nothing to this discussion, just written a personal attack founded on misunderstanding and make-believe.

IIRC, both of these are more or less true:

> THE EN DASH IS ABOUT AS WIDE AS AN UPPERCASE N; THE EM DASH IS AS WIDE AS AN M.

> They’re called that because those are the specific typography jargon words that refer to the height of a physical piece of type (the “em,” also called the “mutton” to reduce confusion) and half that height (the “en,” also called the “nut”).

An em was traditionally the width of an uppercase M and an en half that (around the width of an uppercase N). Nowadays, this relationship doesn't necessarily hold: one em is equal to the font size (e.g., a 12 pt font has one em = 12 pt).

obsessing about mundane details like that provides certain kinds of people with a mild feeling of control over their lives.

With what kind of telepathy did you uncover this fact?

introspection and observation.