Re: En-dash versus em-dash (was: Re: Using the Unicode ellipsis (…) instead of three periods)
On Mon, 2012-12-10 at 13:15 -0500, Shaun McCance wrote: But if we're going to write guidelines, here's my semi-professinal opinion: * Using hyphens instead of dashes for parenthetical text is awful. Using unspaced hyphens-like this-is downright confusing. * I'm old and I like unspaced em-dashes (a). A lot of people these days are switching to spaced en-dashes (b). I think that trend will continue. * Spaced em-dashes (c) are way too wide. * Unspaced en-dashes are for indicating ranges. We should use those too, though the hyphen isn't quite as ugly when misused in this case. Compelling. I’ve updated the wiki page to standardise on spaced en-dashes. https://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/UnicodeUsage The only characters left which need discussion are quotation marks. After looking through a few UI guidelines, the consensus seems to be to either: • use double quotation marks everywhere; or • use italics when referring to UI elements and double quotation marks otherwise (Microsoft’s guidelines). LibreOffice’s guidelines are the only ones which required using _single_ quotes, but that’s for technical reasons (they didn’t used to be able to escape double quotes). This seems fairly conclusive. From a quick look through Totem’s POT file, quotation marks are mainly used for quoting file names at the moment. UI labels are often quoted when referenced as well. Personally I quite like the idea of reducing punctuation clutter by using text styling (italics, monospace, or something else) for identifying UI labels and filenames. Mallard renders gui elements in a different colour to the rest of the text, for example, rather than quoting them. Philip signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: En-dash versus em-dash (was: Re: Using the Unicode ellipsis (…) instead of three periods)
On Mon, 2012-12-10 at 13:15 -0500, Shaun McCance wrote: * Unspaced en-dashes are for indicating ranges. We should use those too, though the hyphen isn't quite as ugly when misused in this case. Since this one should be fairly uncontroversial, I’ve added it to the wiki page with the note that ‘to’ should be used if the dash could be confused with subtraction. Philip signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: En-dash versus em-dash (was: Re: Using the Unicode ellipsis (…) instead of three periods)
On Mon, 2012-12-10 at 12:50 +0100, Robin Stocker wrote: Philip Withnall wrote: I’ve created https://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/UnicodeUsage which I think covers everything discussed in this thread so far. Please feel free to add further suggestions to it, or move things from the ‘discussion’ to the ‘agreed’ list. Looks good. The only thing I’d like to discuss is the use of a spaced em-dash: Em-dash (U+2014, ‘—’) rather than a hyphen (‘-’) in longer descriptive strings. The em-dash should be used similarly to a colon — to mark an abrupt change or conclusion to a sentence. For example: “hyphens should not be used — they are too narrow” rather than “hyphens should not be used - they are too narrow”. I agree that hyphens should not be used for the above purposes. The common alternatives are the following: a) Em-dash without spaces: Hyphens should not be used—they are too narrow b) En-dash with spaces: Hyphens should not be used – they are too narrow c) Em-dash with spaces: Hyphens should not be used — they are too narrow (Please remember to look at these examples in a proportional font, not a fixed-width one.) Also see the following section about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash IMO either style a) or b) from above should be chosen, as they are more widely used than c) in general. I personally prefer b), because a) “glues” the words together and c) spaces them too far apart. Any other opinions on this? Good point. I guess we first need to make the distinction between dashes being used parenthetically – like this – and dashes which are used to conclude a sentence — like this. As the third paragraph you cite on Wikipedia points out, word spacing can be messed up if dashes are not surrounded by spaces, so that limits us to styles b) and c) in both cases. In order to differentiate between parenthetical and conclusive use, I suggest we go with b) for parenthetical usage and c) for demarcating conclusions or abrupt changes in the sentence. However, this doesn’t fit with any particular manual of style. IMO, spaced em-dashes work well, but nobody else seems to think that. Disclaimer: I’m en_GB. I’m not entirely sure that en_GB speakers should be deciding the style to use in the C locale, given that manuals of style differ between the UK and the US. Philip signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: En-dash versus em-dash (was: Re: Using the Unicode ellipsis (…) instead of three periods)
On Mon, 2012-12-10 at 12:50 +0100, Robin Stocker wrote: Philip Withnall wrote: I’ve created https://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/UnicodeUsage which I think covers everything discussed in this thread so far. Please feel free to add further suggestions to it, or move things from the ‘discussion’ to the ‘agreed’ list. Looks good. The only thing I’d like to discuss is the use of a spaced em-dash: Em-dash (U+2014, ‘—’) rather than a hyphen (‘-’) in longer descriptive strings. The em-dash should be used similarly to a colon — to mark an abrupt change or conclusion to a sentence. For example: “hyphens should not be used — they are too narrow” rather than “hyphens should not be used - they are too narrow”. I agree that hyphens should not be used for the above purposes. The common alternatives are the following: a) Em-dash without spaces: Hyphens should not be used—they are too narrow b) En-dash with spaces: Hyphens should not be used – they are too narrow c) Em-dash with spaces: Hyphens should not be used — they are too narrow (Please remember to look at these examples in a proportional font, not a fixed-width one.) Also see the following section about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash IMO either style a) or b) from above should be chosen, as they are more widely used than c) in general. I personally prefer b), because a) “glues” the words together and c) spaces them too far apart. Any other opinions on this? d) If you have parenthetical text, your sentence is too complicated for user interface text. Rewrite it. But if we're going to write guidelines, here's my semi-professinal opinion: * Using hyphens instead of dashes for parenthetical text is awful. Using unspaced hyphens-like this-is downright confusing. * I'm old and I like unspaced em-dashes (a). A lot of people these days are switching to spaced en-dashes (b). I think that trend will continue. * Spaced em-dashes (c) are way too wide. * Unspaced en-dashes are for indicating ranges. We should use those too, though the hyphen isn't quite as ugly when misused in this case. -- Shaun ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
