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A comment on Semantic Linefeeds (2012). Parent comment

Re:Semantic Linefeeds (2012) by shanebellone on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @06:52PM (#34512362)
"Em and en refer to units of typographic measurement, not to the letters M and N. (Yes, the homophony is confusing. To disambiguate, loud print shops referred to them as mutton and nut.) In a traditional metal font, the em was the vertical distance from the top of a piece of type to the bottom. The en was half the size of the em. Originally, the width of the em and en dashes corresponded to these units."

https://practicaltypography.com/hyphens-and-dashes.html

Handwriting allows one to vary the point (width) of individual letters. Printing presses do not afford that luxury.

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Re:Semantic Linefeeds (2012) by kragen on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @07:45PM (#34512792)
sure, but you can still leave horizontal space around your dashes—or not

what we nowadays call 'microtypography' and think ourselves very avant-garde for employing is ubiquitous in medieval illuminated manuscripts; every line is full of subtle variations in letterforms to better fit the available space

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