[bookshare-discuss] Re: Ellipses and em-dashes
- From: "shannon work" <shannon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:09:38 -0500
Cindy,
I am not trying to split hairs but just need a little clarification on
something.
In the post you made, wich I left atached, you make mention of something
called an en dash, and an m dash.
Is this something different or was that a typo?
Like I said not trying to split hairs but I just learned about the M dash
and this EN dash has me a little confused.
I'm sorry, and apologise if I am pestering but, I am lost and never was much
good at punctuation.
Thanks for the time,
Shannon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 6:27 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Ellipses and em-dashes
> I'm glad I read more posts before explaining the
> difference between ellipses and em dashes. Guido did a
> very good job. I'd just like to add a little more to
> his explanation -- but before I do, Guido -- the em
> dash isn't retained in txt. I'm validating this in
> Word in larger font, so I can see it better, but I did
> what someone suggested and closed and saved it in the
> original txt to see what formatting was kept. The em
> dashes, line breaks, and italics all were lost. So I'm
> following the same person's suggestion (Kellie or
> Jana, I think) and using a doulbe hyphen,with a space
> on either side.
>
> Ellipses are used, as the original poster (Was it
> Dave?) said, to show that something has been
> eliminated from a quotation. They can also be used to
> show that a sentence is unfinished, as opposed to
> being interrupted. I don't have any examples of that
> in the book I'm doing now, but . . .
>
> O.K. That was one. I couldn't think of how to finish
> the sentence, so I used ellipses. Here's another: As
> Mary came downstairs, John said, "Maybe tonight we
> could . . . " His voice trailed off as he saw the man
> behind her."
>
> As Guido said, an em dash is a long dash, used to
> interrupt a sentence with a different thought,
> parenthetical or xplanatory but not necessarily strong
> enough to be in parentheses. Here is an example from
> the book I;m validating: "She gave a tiny laugh (em
> dash) a nervous one, he thought (em dash) when it
> took a minute for their strides to coordinate . . ."
> (Here the ellipsis is because I'm not finishing the
> sentence). Another examaple: "Daph (em dash)"
> Another person interrupts: "I know." Here the em dash
> shows that the person who was speaking was interrupted
> rather than that he lost his train of thought.
>
> I admit that since en dashes are used so rarely, I
> can't think at the moment of why one would be used
> instead of an em-dash except for poetic effect, which
> is why I think it was used in Silk.
>
> I hope this explanation isn't too long-winded or
> doesn't repeat anything anyone has already written
> that I haven't yet seen. And that it clarifies the
> differences. As Guido says, and as you all know, a
> hyphen connects compound words or breaks words at ends
> of sentences when they don't fit on a line. But those
> we close. Unfortunately, sometimes, as with the book
> I've validating, scanners, and maybe validators, sue a
> global replace to eliminate all hyphens and that
> results in their being eliminated where they sometimes
> belong.
>
> Cindy
>
>
>
>
>
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