The picky ones among you, ok, well me at least, the kind of folks who would read Eats, Shoots & Leaves, like me I guess, will have noticed a recent change to the HappyHappyDonut site.
Until recently, I have been an avid fan of two characters, the 'en' dash (–) and—my personal favorite—the 'em' dash (—). These are used in place of the minus sign so common to other less well–educated blogs. The en dash can be used in the case of a phone number or to join two words together, like in the sentence just above. On the other hand, the em dash—the finest of them all—is often used to set apart a phrase or to add an idea while avoiding the (hated) parenthesis.
Now until recently, I have used these wonderful characters on a regular basis—just as I do in my school work, resume, and oh, yes, my hated job. However, due to limitations in my blog client software, I have to type those characters out by hand—long form if you will—using special HTML character codes. Though I enjoy the final result, the process has been rather time consuming and I fear, in this era of limited time for personal pleasures, has kept me from writing in this forum as often as I would like.
And so for the time being, I have suspended the usage of en and em dashes. I will be using the homely minus sign to get the idea across, with the following convention applying. For our needs, one '-' is equivalent to an en dash; 2 (ie: '--') is equivalent to an em dash.
And so with that taken care of, I shall sign off, and begin ruminating on my next posting. (or at least go back to studying.) 'nuff said.
PS: Those of you who know your way around Microsoft Word, know that by inputting two minus signs back–to–back, you can force Word to substitute a real em dash.
PPS: A nice present would be the Economist Style Guide, referenced in my Amazon wish list on the right...