just dashing through

A technical issue at work has yielded this bagatelle from good old Wikipedia. I might add that it is possibly the best and most carefully punctuated Wikipedia entry I have ever read.

"Traditionally an em dash—like so—or a spaced em dash — like so — has been used for a dash in running text. The Elements of Typographic Style recommends the more concise spaced en dash – like so – and argues that the length and visual magnitude of an em dash 'belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography'."

(I'm crushed. I used to love that aesthetic; I can remember, as a wee child... but never mind. Why, why??)

"The en dash (always with spaces, in running text) and the spaced em dash both have a certain technical advantage over the unspaced em dash. In most typesetting and most word processing, the spacing between words is expected to be variable, so there can be full justification. Alone among punctuation that marks pauses or logical relations in text, the unspaced em dash disables this for the words between which it falls."

Something for all of us to think about, I think - I just wish Blogger would keep up!