8 ms·

Older people, say folks in their forties or older, grew up with the em dash.

JdeBP 1y ago
That's backwards. People in that age bracket grew up with computers where the em dash was not in the character set at all, and typewriters and terminals only had a minus key. The people who grew up with the em dash are the younger HTML generation of 30 years ago where — was at least a reasonably convenient character entity even if they were using computers with the various 8-bit character sets that did not contain it.
- jml78 1y ago
  Correct, I am 46, grew up with BBS. Early internet. I will be honest, never knew the name of em dash until it became a GPT thing.
  - YVoyiatzis 1y ago
    # Dash Usage Guide *Hyphen (-)* = word-joiner *En dash (–)* = “to/between” *Em dash (—)* = pause, punch, drama
  - JdeBP 1y ago
    ... meaning that you have read some posts on this page a certain way. (-: --- IM2000 * Origin: Some WWW site named Hacker News (2:257/609.3)
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  True, but when desktop publishing arrived on the Mac, I embraced it.
  - DonHopkins 1y ago
    {—}
- reaperducer 1y ago
  That's backwards. People in that age bracket grew up with computers where the em dash was not in the character set at all, and typewriters and terminals only had a minus key. I guess you weren't there. We did em-dashes on typewriters. We just turned the platen knob down one click, typed _, and turned it back.
  - npsomaratna 1y ago
    Anecdotally, what I've seen is that folks who learned typing in the 80s and earlier use two dashes '--' instead of the em-dash (although modern word processors seem to replace this combination with the em-dash). Something else I've noticed is their tendency to use two blank spaces between sentences. I'm a self-taught typist, with all the quirks that comes with (can type programming stuff very accurately at a 100+ WPM; can type normal stuff at a high WPM as well, but the error rate goes up).
    - Breza 1y ago
      I learned to type in the nineties and I used two hyphens. I also learned to put two spaces between sentences but dropped that in the oughts.
  - ted_dunning 1y ago
    None of us at our house did that.
    - reaperducer 1y ago
      That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Your house is not the only house. Moreover, your home is not representative of the millions of typewriters in businesses around the world.
jnwatson 1y ago
Older people that grew up with "desktop publishing" and "The Mac is not a Typewriter" grew up with the em dash.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Correct. And my typewriter dad will do two dashes --.
  - patrickmay 1y ago
    Son?

That's backwards. People in that age bracket grew up with computers where the em dash was not in the character set at all, and typewriters and terminals only had a minus key. The people who grew up with the em dash are the younger HTML generation of 30 years ago where — was at least a reasonably convenient character entity even if they were using computers with the various 8-bit character sets that did not contain it.

jml78 1y ago
Correct, I am 46, grew up with BBS. Early internet. I will be honest, never knew the name of em dash until it became a GPT thing.
- YVoyiatzis 1y ago
  # Dash Usage Guide *Hyphen (-)* = word-joiner *En dash (–)* = “to/between” *Em dash (—)* = pause, punch, drama
- JdeBP 1y ago
  ... meaning that you have read some posts on this page a certain way. (-: --- IM2000 * Origin: Some WWW site named Hacker News (2:257/609.3)
JKCalhoun 1y ago
True, but when desktop publishing arrived on the Mac, I embraced it.
- DonHopkins 1y ago
  {—}
reaperducer 1y ago
That's backwards. People in that age bracket grew up with computers where the em dash was not in the character set at all, and typewriters and terminals only had a minus key. I guess you weren't there. We did em-dashes on typewriters. We just turned the platen knob down one click, typed _, and turned it back.
- npsomaratna 1y ago
  Anecdotally, what I've seen is that folks who learned typing in the 80s and earlier use two dashes '--' instead of the em-dash (although modern word processors seem to replace this combination with the em-dash). Something else I've noticed is their tendency to use two blank spaces between sentences. I'm a self-taught typist, with all the quirks that comes with (can type programming stuff very accurately at a 100+ WPM; can type normal stuff at a high WPM as well, but the error rate goes up).
  - Breza 1y ago
    I learned to type in the nineties and I used two hyphens. I also learned to put two spaces between sentences but dropped that in the oughts.
- ted_dunning 1y ago
  None of us at our house did that.
  - reaperducer 1y ago
    That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Your house is not the only house. Moreover, your home is not representative of the millions of typewriters in businesses around the world.

jnwatson 1y ago

Older people that grew up with "desktop publishing" and "The Mac is not a Typewriter" grew up with the em dash.

JKCalhoun 1y ago
Correct. And my typewriter dad will do two dashes --.
- patrickmay 1y ago
  Son?