• walden@wetshav.ing
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    7 hours ago

    An em dash is --, two dashes. It’s a way to break up a sentence – sort of like a comma.

    Apparently AI uses them a lot.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      I’m too pedantic to let this slide. An em-dash — is a single dash, the width of an m. An en-dash – is a single dash the width of an n

      • trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        If we’re going to be pedantic, the em is a unit of width that depends on the font, but not necessarily the with off an m. Some texts apparently used to define it as the width of the capital M, but this definition is obsolete. source

      • Tess@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        3 hours ago

        So that’s where the name comes from. I never would’ve guessed it was something this straightforward :)

    • rabidhamster@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 hours ago

      I don’t use AI much. Is it actually using two dashes? 'Cause an em dash is its own character: “—” vs --

      I had to put those in manually with the — html entity in the pre utf-8 web days.

      • walden@wetshav.ing
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        4 hours ago

        You’re right. I’ve always just typed two hyphens and called it good but technically it should be one long dash.

        • rabidhamster@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 hours ago

          Haha, yeah, I probably wouldn’t have learned to care that much if design clients didn’t yell at me about it 20 years ago.