Annoyed by two-hyphen em dash replaced by hyphen in my published story

[Bramblethorn]

Since Lit accepts .doc and .rtf, the CMS must strip out all sorts of hidden characters, formatting commands, and my guess, Extended ASCII characters, of which the em dash is one.

The site does not strip out em dashes. I included some in my latest story and they went through just fine. Excerpt:

"Why, thank you," she replied. "Some nice person bought it for my birthday. Oh, Tim, I didn't tell you my news. Derek"—that was her current boss—"wants to talk to me about organising a team-building event."

Note the difference between the em-dashes around "that was her current boss" and the hyphen in "team-building". The visual distinction makes it easier to parse that sentence.

Or, type -

What a lot of bother for a little line - do people really do all of that just to get a longer line? It's the words on each side of the dash that matter, surely.

This is one of those things that's completely immaterial to some readers, and nails-on-chalkboard annoying for others. For me, it matters. A hyphen feels quite different to an em dash, as if I was listening to a familiar melody and somebody changed a quaver to a crotchet. I also fuss over thin vs. regular spaces, and some of my editing work requires paying attention to that kind of detail.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is one of those things that's completely immaterial to some readers, and nails-on-chalkboard annoying for others. For me, it matters. A hyphen feels quite different to an em dash, as if I was listening to a familiar melody and somebody changed a quaver to a crotchet. I also fuss over thin vs. regular spaces, and some of my editing work requires paying attention to that kind of detail.

Fair enough; different minds, different thinking .

 

[Oblimo]

The site does not strip out em dashes. I included some in my latest story and they went through just fine.

Mind if I ask some questions so I can know how to submit em dashes too?

Did you submit a file (and if so, what file format did you use?) or did you use the online form? If you used the form, how did you get the em dashes in there? Did you copy paste from a document (and if so, what format of document), or did you use a keystroke combo to get the actual em character to appear?

 

[ChrisEva]

It's fun reading everyone's dash experiences... a quick look at my bookshelf shows it used frequently, as much as multiple times per printed page. So it is a common and useful mark to help compose more interesting sentence structure so one's stories don't end up just being "I saw him. I grabbed him. I kissed him. Then I did something else."

For my own case, I switched to pasting just the Google docs long dash character—this one—and in my latest published story it was automatically converted to a double hyphen--like this one.

Not what I expected given people's comments in this thread, but it's better than single hyphen.

Happy dashing—no matter how you do it--to all!!

 

[KeithD]

For my own case, I switched to pasting just the Google docs long dash character—this one—and in my latest published story it was automatically converted to a double hyphen--like this one.

That begs the question of what computer program you use and how you submit to Literotica. I use Word, provide real em dashes, and cut and paste the story into the submission box, and the proper form of em dashes appear in the final Lit. version. (As noted before, the two hyphens only were used during the typewriter era because the typewriter didn't provide a real em dash--and the typewriter era ended thirty years ago.)

 

[RejectReality]

That's the same thing that happens with em dashes pasted from Wordperfect. I think the text processor was based upon Word, so any other program you might use can produce unexpected results, when its text is pasted.

Those unexpected results seem to be limited, but the em dash is absolutely one of them.

If it gets on your nerves enough, and you're willing to do a quick find/replace all before pasting, check my earlier post on how to override it with special character codes.

It's fun reading everyone's dash experiences... a quick look at my bookshelf shows it used frequently, as much as multiple times per printed page. So it is a common and useful mark to help compose more interesting sentence structure so one's stories don't end up just being "I saw him. I grabbed him. I kissed him. Then I did something else."

For my own case, I switched to pasting just the Google docs long dash character—this one—and in my latest published story it was automatically converted to a double hyphen--like this one.

Not what I expected given people's comments in this thread, but it's better than single hyphen.

Happy dashing—no matter how you do it--to all!!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Mind if I ask some questions so I can know how to submit em dashes too?

Did you submit a file (and if so, what file format did you use?) or did you use the online form? If you used the form, how did you get the em dashes in there? Did you copy paste from a document (and if so, what format of document), or did you use a keystroke combo to get the actual em character to appear?

Online form, pasted from a Word .docx - same as KeithD, apparently.

 

[LupusDei]

Just a curious observation, CNN.com use double hyphen with spaces:

But while their function was taken over by more advanced systems -- such as automated lights or traffic sensors -- the physical buttons were often kept, rather than being replaced at further expense.

Random sample from here.

 

[KeithD]

Neither is standard. They can set their own presentation rules, of course.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just a curious observation, CNN.com use double hyphen with spaces:



Random sample from here.

So they do. I wonder whether that's a stylistic choice, or some sort of "the CMS was built 20 years ago and only handles basic ASCII" legacy issue. Or perhaps their content's being syndicated to other systems which can't deal with em dashes.

 

[RejectReality]

I would guess the latter. As bloated with garbage taking advantage of modern browser capabilities as CNN is, I doubt it's anything to do with display on their own website.

So they do. I wonder whether that's a stylistic choice, or some sort of "the CMS system was built 20 years ago and only handles basic ASCII" legacy issue. Or perhaps their content's being syndicated to other systems which can't deal with em dashes.