Re:How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
by NegativeLatency on Friday March 28, 2025 @02:57PM
(#43508838)
Spelling used to be more fluid and up to the writer/printer. Printers would also use different spellings as a mechanism to change the line width and otherwise format text to their liking.
E.g. some English language rule says that a comma or ending period of a non-quoted sentence goes inside the quotes if there's something quoted at the end of that sentence. That rule feels anti-intellectual to me, as if there's some misunderstanding of how hierarchical placement in one-dimensional space works (since something that's not being quoted is being put inside quotes)