• Pratai@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Aaaahhh…. So something one must know tech to understand in this context.

    My apologies for not being nearly as smart as you!

    • phneutral@feddit.org
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      14 hours ago

      It is not tech but typography. The em dash is as wide as the small letter m. The en dash is as wide as the small letter n. These two letters are often used for referencing width in typography. There are other reference points, like the small letter x used for height.

      • Pratai@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I was unaware the article was satire. I thought em dash might have been another AI.

    • Stamets@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Need to know tech

      Or have read a book. Mary Shelley used them constantly in Frankenstein and so have authors for hundreds of years.

      My fault for being so autistic to not see this as the blatant trolling it is up until now.

    • Schmeckinger@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Why do you need to know tech? You can take a pen and cut a sentence in multiple parts with long dashes instead of using spaces to signify a pause.

    • FearMeAndDecay@literature.cafe
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      19 hours ago

      Dude this is about grammar not tech. They just gave you the physical description of what an em dash looks like and why it’s different to an en dash or a hyphen. As for the grammatical uses, hyphens are for like connected words like if you say half-sister. En dashes are technically for in between dates like July 19 – July 28. (People rarely use en dashes tho) Em dashes are similar to commas or parenthesis and have a wide variety of uses. For example you could say “I grabbed my AirPods—which had a cute Toothless case—and ran to the car, hoping I wouldn’t be late for school.”