Comments on: Details matter

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:31:18 +0000

I see my examples make no sense because I used “” above.

Non[en dash]insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

Growth hormone[en dash]releasing factor

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:29:47 +0000

Oops, I think I should clarify. I wouldn’t use an en dash (or a hyphen, actually, for an adverb ending in “ly”) in your example. I was thinking of this kind of situation:

Noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

“Non” refers to “insulin-dependent,” not to just “insulin”.

Or this:

Growth hormonereleasing factor

The factor releases growth hormone, not just hormone.

Forgive the medical nomenclature — I see these terms so often that they’re the first things I thought of!

By: Julie Hathaway

Julie Hathaway — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:01:15 +0000

And here’s my even more out-of-date response: I also love properly-applied en-dashes, but I disagree that they should be used with compound modifiers. To me “properly-applied” looks much better than “properly–applied.” (Though it’s hard to see much difference in Verdana.)

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:38:05 +0000

I know this comment is ridiculously out of date, but bear with me!

I love en dashes. It brings me great joy to see articles that actually use en dashes correctly, whether for a page range in a reference section or, even more beautifully, for punctuating a compound modifier. I know that few people but editors actually notice, but to me a properly applied en dash says, “I care.”