Sorry for arriving late to this party. Here are a few things I've noticed.

**Type of dash**

In LaTeX, and therefore also in LyX, there are two types of en dash (and
also two types of em dash). In LaTeX the first is entered by -- and the
second is entered with \textendash. In LyX the first is entered with -- and
the second is entered by putting the unicode en dash in (in my reply to Rich
I listed three ways to do this, and Jerry's Mac technique is doing the same
thing). It's not quite clear to me which is the "correct" way to do this. --
is older, and \textendash was introduced so that it can work with more fonts
(or something like that). 

But as Jerry has noticed, they also have different line breaking properties.
It sounds like the ability of -- to create a  line break was just a side
effect of its implementation rather than intended. Maybe it was suppressed
from \textendash because it's so easy to turn back on when needed (see next
point).

**Changing the breaking behaviour**

Allow \textendash to break: in the position you want to allow a break
(almost certainly after the dash) insert a zero width space. In LaTeX this
is \hspace{0cm}, and in LyX use insert->formatting->horizontal space, then
choose custom and put in zero. This is the same philosophy as Unicode, where
you'd put in a zero-width space to allow a line break.

Stop -- allowing a line break: I'm not sure whether this is a "correct"
solution, but putting it in an \mbox seems to work (as in:
"Heine\mbox{--}Borel theorem"). Unfortunately LyX doesn't support mboxes, so
you'd need to enter it in ERT.

**Which type of line break is correct?**

I know of three ways of using an en dash in English:

1. The original purpose is for numeric ranges in text: "see pp. 40-87".

2. For hyphenating words when they are proper nouns of equal importance: so
in "Heine-Borel theorem" but not in "mean-value theorem".

3. In place of em dashes for parenthetical remarks, with spaces on either
side. This is not traditional but has become fashionable in recent decades.

It seems to me that you do not want breaking for the first usage and you do
for the second (and you'll always get it for the third because of the
spaces), so neither type of dash is better in general. Since \textendash
works with more fonts (so it's said), this seems to me to be the best thing
to output.

Jim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: lyx-users@lists.lyx.org [mailto:lyx-users@lists.lyx.org] On Behalf
Of
> Jerry
> Sent: 4 September 2014 12:15 AM
> To: LyX users' list
> Subject: Re: Hyphenating a hyphenated word at a line break
> 
> On Aug 28, 2014, at 4:03 AM, Jerry <lancebo...@qwest.net> wrote:
> 
> > I have a fancy hyphenated word, crosstalk-cancelled, where I spell it
with (I
> believe) the proper - which is an n-dash. When this is rendered in the
vicinity
> of a line wrap, the entire thing gets pushed to the next line, leaving a
lot of
> ugly white space in the first line. So I inserted a hyphenation point
after the -.
> This shows on the LyX screen as sort of -- which is my original n-dash and
a
> shorter blue dash, probably supposed to represent a hyphen. This is all
great,
> but when this version is rendered, the line break now appears after
> crosstalk--, that is, both the n-dash _and_ the hyphenation point are
> rendered which looks very wrong. What is the typographer's say on this,
and
> is LyX doing the right thing. Also, is this a LyX problem or a TeX
problem? My
> guess the typographer would say, let the n-dash stand alone if it occurs
at a
> line break.
> >
> > Jerry
> 
> Thanks for all your kind responses.
> 
> I need to clear up this thread for a few reasons.
> 
> I started it with a muddle-headed premise--that the n-dash is
appropriately
> used in places such as crosstalk-cancelled; it is not. A hyphen should be
used
> there. I've known this since grammar school and for some reason a bit in
my
> brain flipped (bit rot's a bitch) a couple months ago and I started doing
it
> wrong. So the best thing would be to ignore this whole thread. However...
> 
> LyX, apparently like LaTeX and I suppose TeX, denotes the hyphen as an
> actual hyphen -, the n-dash as two hyphens --, and the m-dash as three
> hyphens ---. When entered this way in LyX, line breaking, if necessary,
> happens as expected, after the hyphen or dash. However...
> 
> Something curious happens on my computer which is a Macintosh. I don't
> know if it happens on other computers but it would be interesting to know.
> (Hint.) Specifically, on Macs the n-dash is entered with Option-hyphen and
> the m-dash with Shift-Option-hyphen; this has been the case since 1984 and
> my fingers know it well. The LyX documentation says that the - -- ---
method
> should be used. (It does not say _not_ to do the Mac-like thing.) Being
> contrary (and a newish LyX user) I tried the traditional Mac way, and it
works-
> -the desired character is displayed on the LyX window and also is rendered
> correctly in printed output. So that is the habit I continued for working
in LyX.
> Therein lies my problem. Even though the traditional Mac entry method
> displays correctly on-screen and in-print, the n- and m-dash so entered DO
> NOT ALLOW LINE BREAKS. And that's why I wrote.
> 
> Is this worth a request ticket--to make these alternate entry methods
> compatible with LyX?
> 
> Jerry
> 
> Some remedial reading for me:
> http://www.dashhyphen.com/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash=

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