Thanks, Emma! Copied and filed.

I'm not very familiar with my keyboard controls.

The other very nerdy thing that it's nonetheless handy to know is the ASCII numbers for the one or two symbols you use most often, then you just do alt+the number. é is 0233 and ½ is 0189, for instance. They're given at the bottom of the frame if you bring up the symbols menu. I don't know many others, but if I were writing something with lots of Spanish I'd learn the cedilla.

Emma

Is it really the other way around? I've been doing long dashes for asides in the narrative, and apologies, but almost every book on my bookshelf seems to do the same.

JB

Hmmm, I give up now, 'cos I'm not sure. The books I looked in have long dashes to interrupt dialogue, and, hang on a mo...

... I've just looked through loads of pages of a recent book to see if there was any cut off dialogue, and yes, that had a long dash too.

Maybe it's different genres, although I wouldn't have thought so.

Katerina

I'm confused and scared.

JB

JB, I want you to measure your dashes... Are these US books, by the way? The US have different uses of em-dashes.

From New Hart's Rules (OUP). As so often there are UK/US differences:

hyphen (shorter than dash):
Mr Lloyd-Jones
Sino-Soviet pact

n-rule (shortest dash, width of a l.c. N)
closed up for
pp.23-47
Dover-Calais
Lloyd-Jones Rule (the rule produced by Mr Lloyd and Mr Jones)

spaced n-rules for:
parenthetical dash UK publishers (except a few like OUP) use it : 'The party lasted - as we knew it would - far longer than planned.' or single parenthetical dash: 'Come on - you'll miss it!'
missing letters: F - - k Off!

m-rule (longer dash, width of an l.c.M)

closed up
to indicate an interruption:'Does the moon actually--?'
US publishers and OUP use an m-rule for single and paired parenthetical dashes too.

Emma

Ok, I'm more confused now, and a lot more frightened.

JB

But actually, it doesn't matter. We're not typesetters - it's up to them to get it right. As long as what we do is clear, no one cares. In the days when all we had was a dash on a typewriter keyboard, it didn't matter.

Emma

Yes, that's absolutely true. Don't put the copy-editors out of work.

But actually, it doesn't matter.

Emma, did I mention recently that I love you?

JB

Emma