Re:The melancholy decline of the semicolon
by layer8 on Saturday November 27, 2021 @03:10PM
(#29362940)
> Over time, I recognized that when I found myself reaching for the technique
I had a similar experience with parentheses.
Re:The melancholy decline of the semicolon
by gnubison on Saturday November 27, 2021 @07:03PM
(#29364866)
They’re called “em dashes”, and they look like this: —
You can find a Real, Genuine Em Dash™ at https://emda.sh, or insert one using ‘C-k - M’ in Vim or ‘Compose - - -’ on Linux — not sure about other platforms.
Re:The melancholy decline of the semicolon
by ineedasername on Saturday November 27, 2021 @09:10PM
(#29365553)
Thanks— I didn't realize there was an actual character for them. Though IIRC MSWord would sometimes auto format them into that single extended dash appearance.
I liked that much more visual que enough that I adopted it myself for a while. Over time, I recognized that when I found myself reaching for the technique it meant that I probably needed to restructure things into more discrete chunks that build sequentially. When possible, conveying complex information benefits from as simple a structure as the information can manage.