The other day I was explaining to a client how to update her new WordPress site. I showed her how to create a post and she turned to me and asked, “Now how do I make em-dashes?”
I hugged her.
Like all typography nuts, I firmly believe that the details matter. That proper use of em- and en-dashes, hanging punctuation, leading & kerning, and all that good stuff, make a page look polished and beautiful. That even those who have neither the eye nor the vocabulary for those details will respond more favorably to a well-designed page than a poorly-designed one.
What’s hard is explaining this to people who are not typography nuts. When I gently suggest that proper italics might look better than underlining for emphasis, when I point out that most fonts include special characters so that typing 1/2 or (c) may not be necessary, and yes, when I explain the difference between hyphens and em- and en-dashes, I am likely to be met with glazed expressions, if not eye-rolling or outright laughter, because there she goes again and who cares about punctuation anyway.
I don’t think I’m being particularly overbearing or pedantic when I talk about this with clients. I think it’s simply that the average joe just does not realize how important these details are in creating an overall effect.
4 Comments
I know this comment is ridiculously out of date, but bear with me!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.”
And here’s my even more out-of-date response: I also love properly-applied en-dashes, but I disagree that they should be used with compound modifiers.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.)
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!
I see my examples make no sense because I used “” above.
Non[en dash]insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
Growth hormone[en dash]releasing factor