[bookshare-discuss] What is an M-dash
- From: "shannon" <shannon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:17:50 -0500
Cindy,
I have heard this mentioned before but I have no idea what an M-Dash is.
Is this using dashes instead of dots?
Shannon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cindy" <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookshare-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2004 1:10 PM
Subject: [bookshare-discuss] Re: elipses
> Boomerdad, you're right about what elipses are -- but
> usually what appears in your examples would be an
> em-dash. Are the dots in the book itself, i.e., do you
> have a sighted person around who can check the book?
> I'm validating a "Fair" book now which has dots but
> the book itself as the em-dash. (I'm sighted and can
> look at the book), so I'm correcting it. The file I'm
> working with is a txt file rather than an rtf file; I
> don't know if the conversion to txt is what caused
> what might have been em-dashes originally to become
> the 3 dots of which you speak or not.
>
> But in the context of the example you give, I'd say
> dashes are more common and moe correct than the dots,
> though stylistically an author or publisher might
> choose differently.
>
> If you want and I can get the book, maybe I can check
> some pages for you where the dots appear and let you
> know what they're supposed to be.
>
> Cindy
>
> --- boomerdad <boomerdad@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Okay, I don't know if they're called elipses or
> > not--elipses may be referring to journalistic dots
> > to signify words being removed from quoted text or
> > dialogue. What I'm talking about is in fiction,
> > when there are dots in the narrative. I ask one of
> > you sighted folk here to help me settle an issue
> > once and for all that's been bugging me for quite
> > some time. Here's a fake paragraph illustrating
> > what I'm talking about:
> >
> > John walked into the bar ...
> >
> > ... and found himself staring into the eyes of his
> > beloved.
> >
> > "John..." she breathed.
> >
> > "Susan...?" he responded.
> >
> > "... You're ... looking well," she stammered.
> >
> >
> > Anyway, you get the idea. I'm overusing them, just
> > to make sure there's no doubt about what I'm
> > referring to.
> >
> > My question is this: I don't know how to fix these
> > dots. Many times, instead of being clumped together
> > there are spaces between them. (instead of "..."
> > you get ". . ."). Sometimes, when someone is
> > speaking, there's a space between the last word of
> > dialogue ("John..." instead of "John ..."), and when
> > the dots occur at the beginning or end of a
> > narrative paragraph, I never know whether to put
> > spaces between the last word and the dots or not,
> > or, as the case may be, the first word of the new
> > paragraph and its dots. OCR isn't consistent as to
> > how to deal with this, and I'd just like to know how
> > to fix them when they're wrongly recognized. Yes,
> > it's petty, and doesn't interfere with legibility
> > ... but I'm a perfectionist in my own editing, and
> > would like to know this for my own writing as well;
> > I may not be putting spaces where there should be
> > spaces and such. What's the "right" way to use
> > these? How's it done in print books? Thanks.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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