[Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?

[Dodi Schultz]

This is another request for you to say what you see before my name
below, appearing twice this time.

Thank you!

1:
---Dodi

2:
--Dodi

[Daniel B. Widdis]

1. Long dash. 2. Shorter dash, but not so short as a hyphen. So if a
hyphen (-) is an en dash, and the #2 choice below (–) is an em dash, I
wonder what the #1 longest (—) dash is called?

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dodi Schultz <DodiSchultz (AT) nasw (DOT) org> wrote:
>
> This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below,
> appearing twice this time.
>
> Thank you!
>
> 1:
> —Dodi
>
> 2:
> –Dodi
>
>



--
Dan Widdis

[Judy Madnick]

From: "Daniel B. Widdis" <widdis (AT) gmail (DOT) com>

<< 1. Long dash. 2. Shorter dash, but not so short as a hyphen.
<< So if a
<< hyphen (-) is an en dash, and the #2 choice below (–) is an em
<< dash, I

I thought it was a long (em dash) and a shorter dash (en dash) in front of Dodi's name. Those are the only two "dashes" I know of (unless you call a hyphen a tiny dash <G>).

Judy

[Daniel B. Widdis]

I think we need Dick Weltz to ring in here with the difference between
an en dash and a hyphen.

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 4:15 PM, Judy Madnick <jmadnick (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
> I thought it was a long (em dash) and a shorter dash (en dash) in front of Dodi's name. Those are the only two "dashes" I know of (unless you call a hyphen a tiny dash <G>).
>
> Judy
>



--
Dan Widdis

[Judy Madnick]

P.S. My email goes through Gmail, which I access through a third-party program...all in Windows Vista. When I viewed it in Firefox, it was the same.

From: "Daniel B. Widdis" <widdis (AT) gmail (DOT) com>

<< 1. Long dash. 2. Shorter dash, but not so short as a hyphen.
<< So if a
<< hyphen (-) is an en dash, and the #2 choice below (–) is an em
<< dash, I

I thought it was a long (em dash) and a shorter dash (en dash) in front of Dodi's name. Those are the only two "dashes" I know of (unless you call a hyphen a tiny dash <G>).

Judy

[Hugo Kornelis]

1: Long horizontal line
2: Short horizontal line (but longer than the hyphen character)

Still Outlook Express on Win XP

----- Original Message -----
From: Dodi Schultz
To: Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 10:08 PM
Subject: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?



This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below, appearing twice this time.

Thank you!

1:
-Dodi

2:
-Dodi

[Judy Madnick]

From: "Daniel B. Widdis" <widdis (AT) gmail (DOT) com>

<< I think we need Dick Weltz to ring in here with the difference
<< between
<< an en dash and a hyphen.

A hyphen, as you know, is the shortest of the three "dashes." It's used when we divide words, connect parts of compound words, and is found right on the keyboard.

The en dash is used (among other things) to show a range of values (e.g., "1999–2000). (I hope that shows up properly!)

The em dash is used (among other things) to show an interruption in thought, which can be mid-sentence or at the end of a sentence.

If someone wants to be more precise—go for it!

Judy

[Tony Abell]

Plain text:
1. three minus signs
2. two minus signs

HTML:
1. em dash
2. en dash

Both the above are from the Unicode HTML entities

------------------------------------------
On 2011-02-03 at 16:08 Dodi Schultz wrote:


> This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below, appearing twice this time.

> Thank you!

> 1:
> —Dodi

> 2:
> –Dodi

[Tim Lodge]

Just to be awkward, I see three hyphens in 1: and two hyphens in 2: -
that's on the Google Website in Fixed font. However in Dan's
quoteback I see a dash (can't tell if it's em- or en-) in 1: and a
single hyphen in 2:

-- Tim L

On Feb 3, 9:08*pm, Dodi Schultz <DodiSchu... (AT) nasw (DOT) org> wrote:
> This is another request for you to say what you see before my name
> below, appearing twice this time.
>
> Thank you!
>
> 1:
> ---Dodi
>
> 2:
> --Dodi

[Paul Keating]

As displayed by Windows “Live� mail, on Windows 7 64-bit, I see

(1) an em-dash.
(2) an en-dash.

As displayed by Firefox on the Google Group, I see the ascii rendering of your original message, provided for clients that don’t understand MIME or can’t display Unicode, and that is

(1) three hyphens.
(2) two hyphens.

(The message I received contains, as expected, two versions of the same message, the first in ascii and the second in HTML. Programs that can render the HTML will display the second version. Programs that can’t will display the first, or–messily–both. The ascii version could have been generated by your mail client, or it could have been supplied by Google Groups in the forwarding process. If you ask Thunderbird to show you the source of the message you sent, something like right-click, Properties, View Source, you’ll be able to tell which it was.)

If in Google Groups I click on “View this group in the new Google Groups� I see an em-dash and an en-dash, the same as my email client.

From: Dodi Schultz
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 10:08 PM
To: Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Subject: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?


This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below, appearing twice this time.

Thank yo0u!

1:
—Dodi

2:
–Dodi

[Dodi Schultz]

Dan Widdis wrote:

> So if a hyphen (-) is an en dash, and the #2 choice below (–) is an em dash, I wonder what the #1 longest (—) dash is called?
>

Actually, a hyphen is a little shorter than an en-dash. But I should
really let Dick answer this; he's the expert.

[Jim Hart]

I'm reading this thread from the Google groups site using Firefox and
fixed font on my Win XP machine.
I see (1) three hyphens and (2) two hyphens. Or minus signs if you
prefer, no difference in this basic font.

Going back to your previous thread I also see "---" (that's three
hyphens; the quotes are mine) on the Google site but the same message
in the email digest appeared as "?---" (question mark followed by
three hyphens)

I don't get posts as individual emails but do get the daily email
digest which I read with Outlook Express, WinXP.

And FWIW I think I know enough about typography to support Judy's take
on en/em/hyphen. A hyphen is not only shorter than an en-rule it's
also usually a bit thicker to match the thick strokes of the letters.
And I suspect a true minus sign is another subspecies, not quite an en-
dash but close enough that most of us would never notice.

hep this holps

Jim



On Feb 4, 8:08*am, Dodi Schultz <DodiSchu... (AT) nasw (DOT) org> wrote:
> This is another request for you to say what you see before my name
> below, appearing twice this time.
>
> Thank you!
>
> 1:
> ---Dodi
>
> 2:
> --Dodi

[Scott Crom]

1: is a single hyphen and 2: looks like a regular dash.

At 03:08 PM 2/3/2011, Dodi Schultz wrote:

>This is another request for you to say what you
>see before my name below, appearing twice this time.
>
>Thank you!
>
>1:
>*Dodi
>
>2:
>–Dodi

[Chris Carson]

Looks like an em dash (1) and an en dash (2).

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 3, 2011, at 4:08 PM, Dodi Schultz <DodiSchultz (AT) nasw (DOT) org> wrote:

>
> This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below, appearing twice this time.
>
> Thank you!
>
> 1:
> —Dodi
>
> 2:
> –Dodi
>

[Steve Graham]

This might repeat what some others have said, but here goes, since I have
considerable experience in dealing with the subject (details upon request).



Thins, ems and ens go back to the dawn of moveable, proportional type.



The first thing to note is that such glyphs as en dashes, em dashes, etc.
are relevant ONLY to proportional
<http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/cumming/WordForLinguists/Typography
..htm> (variable width) type, as opposed to monospaced
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monospaced_font> (fixed width) fonts, such as
we dealt with in the era of the typewriter.



The only messages I have seen from this group have been sent in fixed-width
fonts. If the sending computer has to deal with messages composed around
proportionally spaced fonts, including characters not included in the basic
fixed-width font, then the software has to make a choice between 1. Trying
to convert it to something readable, 2. Ignore it 3. Replace it with a
question mark or something to show that it cannot convert it.



The fact that there are multiple means of specifying these symbols,
including Microsoft's own version (Windows 1252) makes life a nightmare for
programmers attempting to write code to handle this stuff.



Ems, ens and thins are abstractions and represent the width of the letter
'M,' 'N' and a hyphen or dot (period or decimal point), respectively. This
is not an absolute measurement, but depends upon the metrics of the
proportional font in use.



One can have em, en and thin spaces, leaders and as we have seen, dashes.



Before computers took over typesetting, humans had to insert various kinds
of type to "justify" text. That is to say that pages and columns had
straight vertical margins on both the left and right sides.



Remember, however, that reading material is not just paragraph matter. A
massive amount of space in newspapers (my background) is devoted to what we
in the industry called "agate," because the type was smaller than the news
columns.



Agate includes sports statistics, temperature tables, election results,
counts of salmon crossing fish ladders on the Columbia River system of dams,
river levels, stock market figures and a host of others.



Since the traditional method of lining up columns was to build the line from
the left, one cannot simply leave missing data blank. Let's say, for
example, you have a list of temperatures such as:



Anchorage -9

Phoenix 105

Miami 82



You can see that the column is askew.



Thus the old-time typesetter (human version) inserted en spaces (yes, a real
piece of movable type) in place of each missing digit. A thin space was
inserted in place of the negative indicator (which is the hyphen).



Vulgar fractions
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraction_%28mathematics%29#Vulgar.2C_proper.2C
_and_improper_fractions> , e.g. 1/8 always were considered to be an em in
width. The U.S. stock market no longer uses vulgar fractions, but when they
did, it was important to use the em space in order to line up the prices.
U.S. Major League Baseball standings still require vulgar fractions since
teams can be a whole number plus 1/2 game behind the leader.



I'm rambling on a bit, but we are in an era of rampant technological
innovation and many historical terms have persisted although that meaning
the terms themselves has been lost. (Have you ever tried to "dial" a number
with an iPhone?")



Alas, the em dash and en dash have lost their original meanings. I did an
experiment a while back and found that both my MS and Firefox browsers had
no idea that the dashes were supposed to be of the width of the "M" and "N"
(also digits). All it means nowadays is that an en dash is bigger than a
hyphen and an em dash is bigger than an en dash.



Still, for purposes of this forum, as long as messages are transmitted
specifying monospaced fonts, it's better just to avoid theme. Just pretend
you're sitting at a typewriter. (For those who have no idea what such a
device might be, see typewriter <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter> .)



Steve Graham

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too
dark to read. Groucho Marx

[Toni Savage]

A long line, and then a short line.

Again, xp IE8 for Yahoo Mail.
Â*-- Toni Savage




________________________________
From: Dodi Schultz <DodiSchultz (AT) nasw (DOT) org>
To: Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Sent: Thu, February 3, 2011 4:08:34 PM
Subject: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?


This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below,
appearing twice this time.

Thank you!

1:
—Dodi

2:
–Dodi

[Guerri Stevens]

For 1 I see a long dash and for 2 a short dash.
Guerri

Dodi Schultz wrote:
>
> This is another request for you to say what you see before my name
> below, appearing twice this time.
>
> Thank you!
>
> 1:
> —Dodi
>
> 2:
> –Dodi
>

[Millie Morgan]

First Dodi is preceded by the longer (M?) dash
Second Dodi has the shorter (N?) dash

-- Millie
(still using OE6 and XP)



----- Original Message -----
From: Dodi Schultz
To: Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 8:08 AM
Subject: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?



This is another request for you to say what you see before my name below, appearing twice this time.

Thank you!

1:
-Dodi

2:
-Dodi

[Tim Bourne]

> 1:
> ---Dodi
>
> 2:
> --Dodi

In plain text view the first has 3 dashes, the second just 2. No question mark now.

In HTML view they seem to have become continuous lines of 3 and 2 characters long respectively, But
that may just be the way dashes look in that font.

Again, Thunderbird on Linux.

Best wishes,
Tim.

[Tim Lodge]

Thanks, Steve

That's very interesting and put me right on a few things which I
thought I knew!

-- Tim L

[Toni Savage]

Fascinating!Â* And I see nothing and a dashÂ*in your included copy!!Â* (I
originally saw a long and a short dash.)
Â*-- Toni Savage



----- Original Message ----
From: Scott Crom <croms (AT) beloit (DOT) edu>
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com; Dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Sent: Thu, February 3, 2011 7:27:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?

1: is a single hyphen and 2: looks like a regular dash.

At 03:08 PM 2/3/2011, Dodi Schultz wrote:

>This is another request for you to say what you
>see before my name below, appearing twice this time.
>
>Thank you!
>
>1:
>Â*Dodi
>
>2:
>–Dodi

[Toni Savage]

Fascinating!* Thanks!!* but note that it is NOT true that messages from this
group are SENT in fixed-width fonts.* It appears to be true that messages you
RECEIVE are in fixed-width fonts... but I receive some in fixed-width and some
in proportional, depending on the person who sent them.

I think your fixed-width messages are somehow a function of something on your
end (setting on your email provider, reader, or whatever)
-- Toni Savage




________________________________
From: Steve Graham <sdgraham (AT) duckswild (DOT) com>
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Sent: Thu, February 3, 2011 10:06:47 PM
Subject: RE: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?


This might repeat what some others have said, but here goes, since I have
considerable experience in dealing with the subject (details upon request).
*
Thins, ems and ens go back to the dawn of moveable, proportional type.
*
The first thing to note is that such glyphs as en dashes, em dashes, etc. are
relevant ONLY to proportional (variable width) type, as opposed to monospaced
(fixed width) fonts, such as we dealt with in the era of the typewriter.

*
The only messages I have seen from this group have been sent in fixed-width
fonts. If the sending computer has to deal with messages composed around
proportionally spaced fonts, including characters not included in the basic
fixed-width font, then the software has to make a choice between 1. Trying to
convert it to something readable, 2. Ignore it 3. Replace it with a question
mark or something to show that it cannot convert it.
*
The fact that there are multiple means of specifying these symbols, including
Microsoft's own version (Windows 1252) makes life a nightmare for programmers
attempting to write code to handle this stuff.
*
Ems, ens and thins are abstractions and represent the width of the letter 'M,'
'N' and a hyphen or dot (period or decimal point), respectively. This is not an
absolute measurement, but depends upon the metrics of the proportional font in
use.
*
One can have em, en and thin spaces, leaders and as we have seen, dashes.
*
Before computers took over typesetting, humans had to insert various kinds of
type to "justify" text. That is to say that pages and columns had straight
vertical margins on both the left and right sides.
*
Remember, however, that reading material is not just paragraph matter. A massive
amount of space in newspapers (my background) is devoted to what we in the
industry called "agate," because the type was smaller than the news columns.

*
Agate includes sports statistics, temperature tables, election results, counts
of salmon crossing fish ladders on the Columbia River system of dams, river
levels, stock market figures and a host of others.
*
Since the traditional method of lining up columns was to build the line from the
left, one cannot simply leave missing data blank. Let's say, for example, you
have a list of temperatures such as:
*
Anchorage** -9
Phoenix *** 105
Miami *********** 82
*
You can see that the column is askew.
*
Thus the old-time typesetter (human version) inserted en spaces (yes, a real
piece of movable type) in place of each missing digit. A thin space was inserted
in place of the negative indicator (which is the hyphen).
*
Vulgar fractions, e.g. 1/8 always were considered to be an em in width. The U.S.
stock market no longer uses vulgar fractions, but when they did, it was
important to use the em space in order to line up the prices. U.S. Major League
Baseball standings still require vulgar fractions since teams can be a whole
number plus 1/2 game behind the leader.
*
I'm rambling on a bit, but we are in an era of rampant technological innovation
and many historical terms have persisted although that meaning the terms
themselves has been lost. (Have you ever tried to "dial" a number with an
iPhone?")
*
Alas, the em dash and en dash have lost their original meanings. I did an
experiment a while back and found that both my MS and Firefox browsers had no
idea that the dashes were supposed to be of the width of the "M" and "N" (also
digits). All it means nowadays is that an en dash is bigger than a hyphen and an
em dash is bigger than an en dash.
*
Still, for purposes of this forum, as long as messages are transmitted
specifying monospaced fonts, it's better just to avoid theme. Just pretend
you're sitting at a typewriter. (For those who have no idea what such a device
might be, see typewriter.)
*
Steve Graham
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark
to read. Groucho Marx

[Steve Graham]

Note that I said only that the only messages "I had seen ..." in my rather
short exposure. (I fudge a lot). I made no implication about the human
sender. All e-mail is a "store and forward" application, i.e. it is
re-transmitted multiple times. Sometimes it's amazing that messages arrive
intact.



Your comment arrived without the "plain text" tag and thus was not forced by
my e-mail client into that mode - as have other messages in this particular
discussion.



Why I had only seen messages in "plain text" mode from Google Groups in the
past, I have no idea, and therefore chalk it up to (pick one) coincidence,
diabolical Google Gremlins or invading aliens from another galaxy.



Steve Graham

_____

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too
dark to read. Groucho Marx





From: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com [mailto:dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com] On Behalf
Of Toni Savage
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2011 6:58 AM
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Subject: Re: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?



Fascinating! Thanks!! but note that it is NOT true that messages from this
group are SENT in fixed-width fonts. It appears to be true that messages
you RECEIVE are in fixed-width fonts... but I receive some in fixed-width
and some in proportional, depending on the person who sent them.

I think your fixed-width messages are somehow a function of something on
your end (setting on your email provider, reader, or whatever)



-- Toni Savage





_____

From: Steve Graham <sdgraham (AT) duckswild (DOT) com>
To: dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com
Sent: Thu, February 3, 2011 10:06:47 PM
Subject: RE: [Dixonary] OT (2nd request): What do you see now?

This might repeat what some others have said, but here goes, since I have
considerable experience in dealing with the subject (details upon request).



Thins, ems and ens go back to the dawn of moveable, proportional type.



The first thing to note is that such glyphs as en dashes, em dashes, etc.
are relevant ONLY to proportional
<http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/cumming/WordForLinguists/Typography
..htm> (variable width) type, as opposed to monospaced
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monospaced_font> (fixed width) fonts, such as
we dealt with in the era of the typewriter.



The only messages I have seen from this group have been sent in fixed-width
fonts. If the sending computer has to deal with messages composed around
proportionally spaced fonts, including characters not included in the basic
fixed-width font, then the software has to make a choice between 1. Trying
to convert it to something readable, 2. Ignore it 3. Replace it with a
question mark or something to show that it cannot convert it.



The fact that there are multiple means of specifying these symbols,
including Microsoft's own version (Windows 1252) makes life a nightmare for
programmers attempting to write code to handle this stuff.



Ems, ens and thins are abstractions and represent the width of the letter
'M,' 'N' and a hyphen or dot (period or decimal point), respectively. This
is not an absolute measurement, but depends upon the metrics of the
proportional font in use.



One can have em, en and thin spaces, leaders and as we have seen, dashes.



Before computers took over typesetting, humans had to insert various kinds
of type to "justify" text. That is to say that pages and columns had
straight vertical margins on both the left and right sides.



Remember, however, that reading material is not just paragraph matter. A
massive amount of space in newspapers (my background) is devoted to what we
in the industry called "agate," because the type was smaller than the news
columns.



Agate includes sports statistics, temperature tables, election results,
counts of salmon crossing fish ladders on the Columbia River system of dams,
river levels, stock market figures and a host of others.



Since the traditional method of lining up columns was to build the line from
the left, one cannot simply leave missing data blank. Let's say, for
example, you have a list of temperatures such as:



Anchorage -9

Phoenix 105

Miami 82



You can see that the column is askew.



Thus the old-time typesetter (human version) inserted en spaces (yes, a real
piece of movable type) in place of each missing digit. A thin space was
inserted in place of the negative indicator (which is the hyphen).



Vulgar fractions
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraction_%28mathematics%29#Vulgar.2C_proper.2C
_and_improper_fractions> , e.g. 1/8 always were considered to be an em in
width. The U.S. stock market no longer uses vulgar fractions, but when they
did, it was important to use the em space in order to line up the prices.
U.S. Major League Baseball standings still require vulgar fractions since
teams can be a whole number plus 1/2 game behind the leader.



I'm rambling on a bit, but we are in an era of rampant technological
innovation and many historical terms have persisted although that meaning
the terms themselves has been lost. (Have you ever tried to "dial" a number
with an iPhone?")



Alas, the em dash and en dash have lost their original meanings. I did an
experiment a while back and found that both my MS and Firefox browsers had
no idea that the dashes were supposed to be of the width of the "M" and "N"
(also digits). All it means nowadays is that an en dash is bigger than a
hyphen and an em dash is bigger than an en dash.



Still, for purposes of this forum, as long as messages are transmitted
specifying monospaced fonts, it's better just to avoid theme. Just pretend
you're sitting at a typewriter. (For those who have no idea what such a
device might be, see typewriter <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter> .)



Steve Graham

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too
dark to read. Groucho Marx

[Dodi Schultz]

Steve Graham wrote:

> Why I had only seen messages in "plain text" mode from Google Groups
> /in the past/, I have no idea, and therefore chalk it up to (pick one)
> coincidence, diabolical Google Gremlins or invading aliens from
> another galaxy.
>

Has it not occurred to you that very possibly they are one and the same?

---Dodi