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The article refers to the dash character, which of course has a well-established meaning. But people often use the word dash to refer to the hyphen character. This has been true for a long time, and is even more widespread with the rise of the internet. (Example: "The web address is oak dash valley dash hotel dot com.")
I understand the structure of the article, and I'm sure it's consistent with the structure of other articles describing each character. But I think this common usage should also be acknowledged.This may not be a "correct" usage, but it's a common and widespread. An encyclopedia should be descriptive rather than prescriptive. I'm not suggesting diluting the detailed description. But the article deserves a separate section to describe this this common and widespread usage of dash referring to hyphen.
Omc (talk) 17:31, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
Rendering dashes on computers has rows for major text editing systems. Please add a row for Google Docs Richard C Haven (talk) 19:09, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
@John Maynard Friedman: I am reverting this edit of yours as I cannot see that either WP:NPOV or WP:NOTGUIDE is violated. What of point of view do you think is advocated? And NOTGUIDE says
There is no required limit to descriptions of "how people or things use or do something", including detailed use of the numeric encoding of HTML that you find excessive.
Also, your mention of "when en dashes are used in phrasing" is unnecessarily obscure. "Phrasing", per Wikt:phrasing § Noun is "The way a statement is put together, particularly in matters of style and word choice." This covers nearly all uses of the en dash. Perhaps the sentence could read
Peter Brown (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
In Dash § Parenthetic and other uses at the sentence level, it is implied that the spaced en dash gives "clearer typography than 'set close' em-dashes." The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst is cited in support. However, as Dash § En dash versus em dash makes quite clear, the matter is controversial; Oxford University Press, among other publishers, prefers the unspaced em dash. I am accordingly labeling as ((Dubious)) the claim that the en dash is clearer. Peter Brown (talk) 02:17, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
In typescript, a double hyphen (--) is often used for a long dash. Double hyphens in a typeset document are a sure sign that the type was set by a typist, not a typographer. A typographer will use an em dash, three-quarter em, or en dash, depending on context or personal style. The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography.[1]
— Robert Bringhurst
References
((cite book))
: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
I propose changing the 5x column of the Unicode table to include a "standard" letter as well. This would highlight the vertical position of the different forms of dash. An upper case M seems a suitable choice — as in M-----
vs. M____
— GhostInTheMachine talk to me 12:09, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
I understand it's Wikipedia policy to use en-dashes for coordinate terms, but in this sentence, it makes no sense to use en-dashes, since it's an example of places where hyphens are used instead. As such, this is is confusing to read:
--
For example, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the AMA Manual of Style, and Dorland's medical reference works use hyphens, not en dashes, in coordinate terms (such as blood–brain barrier), in eponyms (such as Cheyne–Stokes respiration, Kaplan–Meier method), and so on.
--
I had changed it to hyphens, but it got reverted (on 2019-08-21), and I disagree with the reasoning behind the reversion. Like, put a [sic] after each such hyphen if you want, but it's an example, so it should be shown as is, warts and all. IMHO, YMMV, etc. FuturSimple (talk) 17:33, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
New York-London flight under "En dash § relationships and connections" doesn't make sense:
It states that "New York-London flight" could be misconstrued as a New flight from York to London, and suggests the use of the phrase "New York-to-London". This phrasing has the exact same issue. Should we just use an example other than New York and forget the whole ambiguity bit? EntirelyOnline (talk) 19:16, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia, including this article (§"See also"), uses en-dashes to define, elaborate on, and describe items in numbered and bulleted lists; however this article makes no reference to this use case. This use case should be added—either describing it or providing a link elsewhere that does. SMikutsky (talk) 16:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
I have temporarily commented out the section "Typing the characters". As it stood, it is an egregious violation of WP:NOTMANUAL and WP:DUE. It is bogged down in the detail of different OSs, different keyboards, different keyboard mappings. How is it encyclopedic? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)