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Comment by quietbritishjim | Hacker News Reader

> 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.)

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>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.

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

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).

> 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."

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