Mar 15
2010Entertaining Read About the Lack of an Em Dash Key
Filed Under: Fun Stuff, Grammar & Style
1571 visits, 22 today
Here’s an entertaining read about the lack of an em dash key on the keyboard.
Excerpt:
Why care? The em-dash is a fundamental unit of punctuation. We often fake it with a couple of hyphens, but it’s dreadfully ugly. You can fake an en-dash with a hyphen, and vice versa, and nobody but a typesetter will blink. But an em-dash requires visual distinction. God forbid that the em-dash’s unique function be gradually encroached upon by the comma, the semi-colon and the parenthesis, just because of an ignorant oversight at the dawn of the PC. It would be a tragic loss. There are some times when nothing less than an em-dash will do.
By the way, the shortcut for typing out the em dash is to press ‘Alt-0151‘ on the number pad. Unfortunately, my laptop doesn’t have a number pad, so I have to copy/paste the em dash from somewhere else. I admit that most of the time–like right now–I’m lazy and juts use two hyphens.
Related Articles: |
Another great way to add en-dashes and em-dashes is to use the open source tool AutoHotkey. The following simple script, for example, will add an en-dash when you press the Windows key plus the n key, and an em dash when you press the Windows key plus the m key. Of course you can adapt the hotkeys as you like. Works in any program such as Word, OpenOffice, Help & Manual, and others.
;to set en-dash, press Windows key plus n
#n::
GetKeyState, state, Numlock, T
if state Send {NUMLOCK}
Send, {ALTDOWN}{Numpad0}{Numpad1}{Numpad5}{Numpad0}{ALTUP}
if state D Send {NUMLOCK}
Exit
;
;
;to set em-dash, press Windows key plus m
#m::
GetKeyState, state, Numlock, T
if state D Send {NUMLOCK}
Send, {ALTDOWN}{Numpad0}{Numpad1}{Numpad5}{Numpad1}{ALTUP}
if state D Send {NUMLOCK}
Exit
Marc Achtelig´s last blog ..More screen capture tools added
OOps – looks like the system just deleted some important characters within the code example. Please note that there must be an unequal sign in the four lines with the IF statement. So that it says IF state D is unequal to D Send {NUMLOCK}.
Hope the following version gets through correctly:
;to set en-dash, press Windows key plus n
#n::
GetKeyState, state, Numlock, T
if state != Send {NUMLOCK}
Send, {ALTDOWN}{Numpad0}{Numpad1}{Numpad5}{Numpad0}{ALTUP}
if state != D Send {NUMLOCK}
Exit
;
;
;to set em-dash, press Windows key plus m
#m::
GetKeyState, state, Numlock, T
if state != D Send {NUMLOCK}
Send, {ALTDOWN}{Numpad0}{Numpad1}{Numpad5}{Numpad1}{ALTUP}
if state != D Send {NUMLOCK}
Exit
Marc Achtelig´s last blog ..More screen capture tools added
Or you could use a Mac, which does have an easy key combination for typing en- and em-dashes (option-hyphen and shift-option-hyphen).
Geoff Sauer´s last blog ..The Transformation of Scientific Communication: A Model for 2020
I think there’s a whole generation of people who don’t know the difference and get confused when apps like Word automatically change their hyphens
Haitham Razagui´s last blog ..Welcome