Using quotes. Dashes format?

Post by Ant
Hello.
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my signature
below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a space before and
none after? I have seen some have spaces after the two dashes. I am
confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal line so
two dashes are used? :(

Some word processors will automatically convert two hyphens into an en or em
dash (I forget which), but it is better to leave a space after the dash,
because the same word processors will often flag it as a spelling error if you
don't, and searches will often fail to find the word .

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Ant

2015-01-31 22:32:35 UTC

Post by Ant
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my signature
below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a space before and
none after? I have seen some have spaces after the two dashes. I am
confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal line so
two dashes are used? :(

Well, this is not in a word processor since I am using plain ASCII texts
like e-mails, newsgroup posts (like this one), etc. Basically, like
typewriter and old retro days but online. ;)

Joe Fineman

2015-01-31 23:45:12 UTC

Post by Ant
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my signature
below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a space before
and none after? I have seen some have spaces after the two dashes. I
am confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal
line so two dashes are used? :(

Some word processors will automatically convert two hyphens into an
en or em dash (I forget which), but it is better to leave a space
after the dash, because the same word processors will often flag it
as a spelling error if you don't, and searches will often fail to
find the word .

Well, this is not in a word processor since I am using plain ASCII
texts like e-mails, newsgroup posts (like this one), etc. Basically,
like typewriter and old retro days but online. ;)

In that case, you should call the character "-" a hyphen, not a dash,
and the ASCII equivalent of a dash is indeed usually two hyphens with
space on both sides. In typesetting, there are four distinct horizontal
characters: the hyphen, the en dash, the em dash, and the minus sign,
called up in TeX respectively by -, --, ---, and - (in math mode).

It seems that schoolchildren are no longer taught the difference between
a hyphen and a dash. I my childhood (1940s), Fred Allen could still get
a laugh by saying "As one hyphen said to the other hyphen, let's get
together and make a dash". I suppose that would fall flat these days.

--
--- Joe Fineman ***@verizon.net

||: Isn't there any other part of the matzo you can eat? :||

Ant

2015-02-02 00:31:50 UTC

Post by Joe Fineman

Post by Ant
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my signature
below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a space before
and none after? I have seen some have spaces after the two dashes. I
am confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal
line so two dashes are used? :(

Some word processors will automatically convert two hyphens into an
en or em dash (I forget which), but it is better to leave a space
after the dash, because the same word processors will often flag it
as a spelling error if you don't, and searches will often fail to
find the word .

Well, this is not in a word processor since I am using plain ASCII
texts like e-mails, newsgroup posts (like this one), etc. Basically,
like typewriter and old retro days but online. ;)

In that case, you should call the character "-" a hyphen, not a dash,
and the ASCII equivalent of a dash is indeed usually two hyphens with
space on both sides. In typesetting, there are four distinct horizontal
characters: the hyphen, the en dash, the em dash, and the minus sign,
called up in TeX respectively by -, --, ---, and - (in math mode).
It seems that schoolchildren are no longer taught the difference between
a hyphen and a dash. I my childhood (1940s), Fred Allen could still get
a laugh by saying "As one hyphen said to the other hyphen, let's get
together and make a dash". I suppose that would fall flat these days.

Yep, we're old. :(

--
Quote of the Week: "I have to sit up with a sick ant." --unknown
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org (Personal Web Site)
/ /\ /\ \ Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
| |o o| |
\ _ / Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail. If crediting,
( ) then please kindly use Ant nickname and AQFL URL/link.

Percival P. Cassidy

2015-02-02 01:23:29 UTC

Post by Joe Fineman

Post by Ant
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my signature
below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a space before
and none after? I have seen some have spaces after the two dashes. I
am confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal
line so two dashes are used? :(

Some word processors will automatically convert two hyphens into an
en or em dash (I forget which), but it is better to leave a space
after the dash, because the same word processors will often flag it
as a spelling error if you don't, and searches will often fail to
find the word .

Well, this is not in a word processor since I am using plain ASCII
texts like e-mails, newsgroup posts (like this one), etc. Basically,
like typewriter and old retro days but online. ;)

In that case, you should call the character "-" a hyphen, not a dash,
and the ASCII equivalent of a dash is indeed usually two hyphens with
space on both sides. In typesetting, there are four distinct horizontal
characters: the hyphen, the en dash, the em dash, and the minus sign,
called up in TeX respectively by -, --, ---, and - (in math mode).
It seems that schoolchildren are no longer taught the difference between
a hyphen and a dash. I my childhood (1940s), Fred Allen could still get
a laugh by saying "As one hyphen said to the other hyphen, let's get
together and make a dash". I suppose that would fall flat these days.

Yep, we're old. :(

I was at school in the UK sixty or so years ago and do not recall
hearing anything about dashes (as distinct from hyphens) except as a
member of the Typographical Society, which typeset (using a composing
stick) and printed, on a hand-cranked press, the school magazine. There
I learned about en-dashes and em-dashes.

Perce

Peter Moylan

2015-02-01 00:40:52 UTC

Post by Ant
Hello.
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my
signature below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a
space before and none after? I have seen some have spaces after the
two dashes. I am confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very
long horizontal line so two dashes are used? :(

Some word processors will automatically convert two hyphens into an
en or em dash (I forget which), but it is better to leave a space
after the dash, because the same word processors will often flag it
as a spelling error if you don't, and searches will often fail to
find the word .

I have never like the convention -- apparently favoured by most book
publishers -- of having no space around an em dash. It makes it look
like an overgrown hyphen. I know I'm bucking the trend here, but I have
always put a space character before and after an em dash.

The "no space after" used by Ant to attribute something looks
reasonable, because in that case the dash is not being used as a
parenthesis.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
JE SUIS CHARLIE

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 03:55:25 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
I have never like the convention -- apparently favoured by most book
publishers -- of having no space around an em dash. It makes it look
like an overgrown hyphen. I know I'm bucking the trend here, but I have
always put a space character before and after an em dash.

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I can't think of
any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Post by Peter Moylan
The "no space after" used by Ant to attribute something looks
reasonable, because in that case the dash is not being used as a
parenthesis.

James Hogg

2015-02-01 11:00:29 UTC

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I can't think of
any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Post by Peter Moylan
The "no space after" used by Ant to attribute something looks
reasonable, because in that case the dash is not being used as a
parenthesis.

--
James

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 15:29:09 UTC

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I can't think of
any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Not according to the style sheet they sent me a few months ago.

I can never remember whether it was Burgess or Lodge who mentioned in an
essay how surprised he was to open an American edition of one of his novels
and find double quotes and em-dashes instead of what he had submitted.
(Probably Burgess, because Lodge doesn't seem to have been popular enough
to warrant resetting.)

James Hogg

2015-02-01 15:50:14 UTC

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I can't think of
any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Not according to the style sheet they sent me a few months ago.

Look at any book published by OUP.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
I can never remember whether it was Burgess or Lodge who mentioned in an
essay how surprised he was to open an American edition of one of his novels
and find double quotes and em-dashes instead of what he had submitted.
(Probably Burgess, because Lodge doesn't seem to have been popular enough
to warrant resetting.)

--
James

musika

2015-02-01 17:45:26 UTC

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I can't
think of any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Not according to the style sheet they sent me a few months ago.

Look at any book published by OUP.

"No space is required either side of the em rule."

<http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/authors/AuthorGuidelinesMain/HouseStyle/#lev1>

http://tinyurl.com/o8tsmy6

--
Ray
UK

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 18:41:04 UTC

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I can't
think of any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Not according to the style sheet they sent me a few months ago.

Look at any book published by OUP.

"No space is required either side of the em rule."
<http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/authors/AuthorGuidelinesMain/HouseStyle/#lev1>
http://tinyurl.com/o8tsmy6

Obviously, if you're using American style, you don't space around an em-dash!
Interesting that they call it an em rule instead. In the history of typography,
rules and dashes are quite different things.

musika

2015-02-01 18:52:38 UTC

On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 6:00:31 AM UTC-5, James Hogg

On Saturday, January 31, 2015 at 7:40:58 PM UTC-5, Peter

Post by Peter Moylan
I have never like the convention -- apparently favoured
by most book publishers -- of having no space around an
em dash. It makes it look like an overgrown hyphen. I
know I'm bucking the trend here, but I have always put a
space character before and after an em dash.

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I
can't think of any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Not according to the style sheet they sent me a few months
ago.

Look at any book published by OUP.

"No space is required either side of the em rule."
<http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/authors/AuthorGuidelinesMain/HouseStyle/#lev1>
http://tinyurl.com/o8tsmy6

Obviously, if you're using American style, you don't space around an em-dash!

That is their house style. If there were a difference between US and UK
style it would be mentioned.

--
Ray
UK

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 21:00:06 UTC

Post by Peter Moylan
I have never like the convention -- apparently favoured
by most book publishers -- of having no space around an
em dash. It makes it look like an overgrown hyphen. I
know I'm bucking the trend here, but I have always put a
space character before and after an em dash.

Where Am uses unspaced em-dash, Br uses spaced en-dash. I
can't think of any usual use for em-dash in Br?

Oxford uses an unspaced em-dash

Not according to the style sheet they sent me a few months ago.

Look at any book published by OUP.

"No space is required either side of the em rule."
<http://global.oup.com/uk/academic/authors/AuthorGuidelinesMain/HouseStyle/#lev1>
http://tinyurl.com/o8tsmy6

Obviously, if you're using American style, you don't space around an em-dash!

That is their house style. If there were a difference between US and UK
style it would be mentioned.

They inform autbors that we may follow _either_ US or UK practice, so long
as we are consistent. And this is the Oxford folks, not the New York folks.

Stan Brown

2015-02-01 12:41:34 UTC

I do the same in all my writing that uses proportional fonts.

"Give my em dashes room to breathe!"

--
"The difference between the /almost right/ word and the /right/ word
is ... the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."
--Mark Twain
Stan Brown, Tompkins County, NY, USA http://OakRoadSystems.com

Steve Hayes

2015-02-01 17:49:23 UTC

I do the same in all my writing that uses proportional fonts.
"Give my em dashes room to breathe!"

In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text, which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Katy Jennison

2015-02-01 18:01:09 UTC

I do the same in all my writing that uses proportional fonts.
"Give my em dashes room to breathe!"

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

--
Katy Jennison

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 18:46:04 UTC

I do the same in all my writing that uses proportional fonts.
"Give my em dashes room to breathe!"

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

MSWord out-of-the-box automatically converted a leading hyphen to an en-dash
(I don't know why they thought that was a Good Thing), which gives the copy-
editor a great deal to do in a work discussing suffixes. I soon discovered
how to defeat it but do not remember how. (Could it have been in effect when
automatic hyphenation was turned on?)

Katy Jennison

2015-02-01 19:57:23 UTC

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text, which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

--
Katy Jennison

James Hogg

2015-02-01 20:56:15 UTC

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

--
James

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 21:05:04 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

In Unicode, that's Hungarian capital O with long umlaut.

Katy Jennison

2015-02-01 21:11:38 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150
Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

but neither of these appear to do anything much on my netbook. Still,
I'll keep practising and maybe it will get the idea. Thanks anyway.

--
Katy Jennison

James Hogg

2015-02-01 22:07:03 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150
Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

but neither of these appear to do anything much on my netbook. Still,
I'll keep practising and maybe it will get the idea. Thanks anyway.

That would have something to do with the absence of a numerical keyboard
on a portable computer.

--
James

Katy Jennison

2015-02-01 22:24:28 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150
Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

but neither of these appear to do anything much on my netbook. Still,
I'll keep practising and maybe it will get the idea. Thanks anyway.

That would have something to do with the absence of a numerical keyboard
on a portable computer.

Yes, I feared as much. If I really need the things I can always cut and
paste. It's just annoying when the version (of anything) that's
supposed to be an improvement on the previous one doesn't have some of
the features that one valued in its predecessor. Cars, now - why can't
I any longer get a car which will blow warm air on my feet and cold air
on my face simultaneously, as earlier cars did? And why do the
windscreen wipers have to come on automatically when one tries the
screen wash to see if it's unfrozen yet, which is exactly when you don't
want the wipers to smear the screen? My 1965 Volvo didn't have that
problem, dammit.

Ahem. Sorry about that. Returning you now to your usual calm, measured
newsgroup.

--
Katy Jennison

Peter Moylan

2015-02-01 22:57:52 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150
Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

but neither of these appear to do anything much on my netbook. Still,
I'll keep practising and maybe it will get the idea. Thanks anyway.

A netbook is convenient for travelling, but that crippled keyboard is a
major annoyance. That's why I never use mine when I'm not travelling.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
JE SUIS CHARLIE

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-02 04:54:50 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150
Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

but neither of these appear to do anything much on my netbook. Still,
I'll keep practising and maybe it will get the idea. Thanks anyway.

Mine are specific to WinWord (i.e. Word for Windows). I think the Alt +
numbers on the keypad was way back in DOS days, but I don't recall there
being an en-dash in the Upper ASCII range.

Ant

2015-02-02 00:43:38 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Steve Hayes

2015-02-02 02:00:23 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

It produced – for me in my newsreader, as opposed to -

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Ant

2015-02-05 01:46:44 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

It produced ??? for me in my newsreader, as opposed to -

Interesting. Better stick with ASCII text characters. ;)

Lewis

2015-02-04 07:16:58 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Peter Moylan

2015-02-04 08:51:51 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
JE SUIS CHARLIE

Percival P. Cassidy

2015-02-04 15:53:36 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

Except that Micro$oft is no longer providing security updates for XP.

Perce

J. J. Lodder

2015-02-04 22:10:32 UTC

Post by Percival P. Cassidy

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

Except that Micro$oft is no longer providing security updates for XP.

Why care? It was unsafe out of the box to begin with,

Jan

Lewis

2015-02-05 20:51:20 UTC

Post by Percival P. Cassidy

Post by J. J. Lodder

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

Except that Micro$oft is no longer providing security updates for XP.

Why care? It was unsafe out of the box to begin with,

And it is much LESS secure today.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Stan Brown

2015-02-05 00:27:49 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

Over Vista, certainly, but I think I'm very far from alone in feeling
that Windows 7 is an improvement on both.

Odd how Microsoft operating systems alternate crap and improvement.
Windows 8 is to Windows 7 as Vista was to Windows XP.

Peter Moylan

2015-02-05 02:13:46 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

Over Vista, certainly, but I think I'm very far from alone in feeling
that Windows 7 is an improvement on both.
Odd how Microsoft operating systems alternate crap and improvement.
Windows 8 is to Windows 7 as Vista was to Windows XP.

That's a very old tradition. Remember the saying "Never use an
even-numbered version of MS-DOS"?

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
JE SUIS CHARLIE

Ant

2015-02-05 18:38:27 UTC

Post by Lewis
Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

2000 was good too!

Post by Stan Brown
Over Vista, certainly, but I think I'm very far from alone in feeling
that Windows 7 is an improvement on both.
Odd how Microsoft operating systems alternate crap and improvement.
Windows 8 is to Windows 7 as Vista was to Windows XP.

That's a very old tradition. Remember the saying "Never use an
even-numbered version of MS-DOS"?

Heh, do you guys re(call/member) when Star Trek (movie/film)s were like
that too? ;)

Lewis

2015-02-05 20:52:41 UTC

Post by Lewis
Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

2000 was good too!

2000 was excellent, and the best version of Windows until Windows 7, but
it was not a consumer release and a lot of things that people wanted to
do with a home computer did not work or did not work well in 2000.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Lewis

2015-02-05 20:50:33 UTC

Post by James Hogg
Alt+ 0150

That looks like a single dash/hyphen/whatever to me (-) in Windows XP
Pro SP3's SeaMonkey v2.32, but in Terminal in Linux show two foreign
characters. :P

Windows XP? Egads.

Why not? XP is a marked improvement over its successors.

Why not? Because XP is insecure and has many unfixable vulnerabilities.
Using XP on a computer that is not "air gapped" from the Internet is
foolish.

As for better than it's successors, no, it's not better than Windows 7
in any way.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Charles Bishop

2015-02-04 02:48:32 UTC

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

--
charles

Tony Cooper

2015-02-04 03:58:44 UTC

On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.

I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

http://www.alt-codes.net/

However, some don't work in newsgroups. Alt + 1 does not result in
that smiley face in the chart.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

Steve Hayes

2015-02-04 07:06:25 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text,
which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

Alt-0150 = – (en-dash)
Alt-150 = û

Alt-0151 = — (em dash)
Alt-151 = ù

It depends on what character set you are using.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Charles Bishop

2015-02-05 06:33:51 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional
fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text,
which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.

???? is what I get. No telling what you'll see

Post by Tony Cooper
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

????, is Alt, shift (to get the plus sign, which gives me the plus/minus
sign, and then the next three characters (not including the comma)

Or ???, which is Alt pressed and 150 entered

Post by Tony Cooper
http://www.alt-codes.net/
However, some don't work in newsgroups. Alt + 1 does not result in
that smiley face in the chart.

It doesn't work for me so it's my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or the fact
that I'm on an iMac with whatever software that implies.

Thanks for trying though.

--
charles

Garrett Wollman

2015-02-05 07:29:57 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

????, is Alt, shift (to get the plus sign, which gives me the plus/minus
sign, and then the next three characters (not including the comma)

[...]

Post by Charles Bishop
It doesn't work for me so it's my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or the fact
that I'm on an iMac with whatever software that implies.

Tony's giving you instructions for Windows that aren't going to do
anything sensible on your Mac.

Open "Keyboard Viewer" to see the special characters according to what
key combination generates them, or open "Character Viewer" to pick
arbitrary Unicode characters from a chart (either by function or by
the code point in various character sets).

My recollection from long-ago DOS days (which is where that whole
Alt+digits thing comes from -- it was implemented on the very first
IBM PC back in 1981) is that it uses decimal -- no ABCDEF on the
numeric keypad. So Alt+150 represents character 150 in some
unspecified character set -- Unicode and ISO 8859-1 have control
characters from 128 and 159, but in the original IBM 8-bit character
set (which some people erroneously called "ANSI" for some unknown
reason), there were graphic characters in that block instead.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
***@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

Charles Bishop

2015-02-05 17:08:01 UTC

Post by Garrett Wollman

Post by Tony Cooper
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

????, is Alt, shift (to get the plus sign, which gives me the plus/minus
sign, and then the next three characters (not including the comma)

[...]

Post by Charles Bishop
It doesn't work for me so it's my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or the fact
that I'm on an iMac with whatever software that implies.

Tony's giving you instructions for Windows that aren't going to do
anything sensible on your Mac.
Open "Keyboard Viewer" to see the special characters according to what
key combination generates them, or open "Character Viewer" to pick
arbitrary Unicode characters from a chart (either by function or by
the code point in various character sets).
My recollection from long-ago DOS days (which is where that whole
Alt+digits thing comes from -- it was implemented on the very first
IBM PC back in 1981) is that it uses decimal -- no ABCDEF on the
numeric keypad. So Alt+150 represents character 150 in some
unspecified character set -- Unicode and ISO 8859-1 have control
characters from 128 and 159, but in the original IBM 8-bit character
set (which some people erroneously called "ANSI" for some unknown
reason), there were graphic characters in that block instead.

Thanks, I had come to much the same conclusion, without the detail
you've supplied. It's interesting to learn the history.

--
charles

Tony Cooper

2015-02-05 07:38:19 UTC

On Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:33:51 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Tony Cooper
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were
usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional
fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text,
which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.

???? is what I get. No telling what you'll see

Post by Tony Cooper
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

????, is Alt, shift (to get the plus sign, which gives me the plus/minus
sign, and then the next three characters (not including the comma)
Or ???, which is Alt pressed and 150 entered

Post by Tony Cooper
http://www.alt-codes.net/
However, some don't work in newsgroups. Alt + 1 does not result in
that smiley face in the chart.

It doesn't work for me so it's my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or the fact
that I'm on an iMac with whatever software that implies.
Thanks for trying though.

You do not press the + key. In this case, alt + 150 means "alt plus
150" or "alt and 150".

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

Charles Bishop

2015-02-05 16:53:49 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
On Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:33:51 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Tony Cooper
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were
usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional
fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text,
which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.

???? is what I get. No telling what you'll see

Post by Tony Cooper
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

????, is Alt, shift (to get the plus sign, which gives me the plus/minus
sign, and then the next three characters (not including the comma)
Or ???, which is Alt pressed and 150 entered

Post by Tony Cooper
http://www.alt-codes.net/
However, some don't work in newsgroups. Alt + 1 does not result in
that smiley face in the chart.

It doesn't work for me so it's my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or the fact
that I'm on an iMac with whatever software that implies.
Thanks for trying though.

You do not press the + key. In this case, alt + 150 means "alt plus
150" or "alt and 150".

OK

??? is what I get, pressing the alt key, keeping it pressed down and
sequentially entering 1, 5, then 0. If the characters don't translate,
the first is an upside down exclamation mark, the second is infinity and
the third is the degree symbol a small circle raised to the top of the
line.

--
charles

Tony Cooper

2015-02-05 18:41:21 UTC

On Thu, 05 Feb 2015 08:53:49 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Tony Cooper
On Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:33:51 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Tony Cooper
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were
usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional
fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text,
which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a
line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.

???? is what I get. No telling what you'll see

Post by Tony Cooper
I find that you can omit the first 0 in that, though, and type alt
+150.

????, is Alt, shift (to get the plus sign, which gives me the plus/minus
sign, and then the next three characters (not including the comma)
Or ???, which is Alt pressed and 150 entered

Post by Tony Cooper
http://www.alt-codes.net/
However, some don't work in newsgroups. Alt + 1 does not result in
that smiley face in the chart.

It doesn't work for me so it's my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or the fact
that I'm on an iMac with whatever software that implies.
Thanks for trying though.

You do not press the + key. In this case, alt + 150 means "alt plus
150" or "alt and 150".

OK
??? is what I get, pressing the alt key, keeping it pressed down and
sequentially entering 1, 5, then 0. If the characters don't translate,
the first is an upside down exclamation mark, the second is infinity and
the third is the degree symbol a small circle raised to the top of the
line.

It's been established that you use a Mac. I'm a Windows user, and Mac
stuff is as alien to me as the Operator's Manual for a Sambuca siege
engine.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando FL

R H Draney

2015-02-06 06:22:06 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
You do not press the + key. In this case, alt + 150 means "alt plus
150" or "alt and 150".

OK
??? is what I get, pressing the alt key, keeping it pressed down and
sequentially entering 1, 5, then 0. If the characters don't translate,
the first is an upside down exclamation mark, the second is infinity
and the third is the degree symbol a small circle raised to the top of
the line.

The Alt+numbers thing only works with the numbers on the numeric keypad....

Which my laptop doesn't have, and the blue Fn key doesn't seem to turn a
set of the letter keys into numbers the way it's says on the tin....r

Charles Bishop

2015-02-05 17:06:30 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
On Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:33:51 -0800, Charles Bishop

[snip-I asked about how to get a specific character]

Post by Tony Cooper
You do not press the + key. In this case, alt + 150 means "alt plus
150" or "alt and 150".

I did this once before, but I'll repeat it here to add that it's
difficult giving instructions on how to do something if there isn't a
common vocabulary or understanding.

If I press the alt key, keep it depressed and then type, sequentially 1,
5, and then 0, I get:

??? these are three characters: upside down exclamation point,
infinity sign and degree character (for F or C).

There is obviously something in my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or my
computer software (iMac) that doesn't allow this convention. I'm
unlikely to need to use the characters obtained by using Alt and then a
number, but I was curious and tried it. Doesn't work, but I don't think
I need it to.

--
chalres

Rich Ulrich

2015-02-05 18:38:22 UTC

On Thu, 05 Feb 2015 09:06:30 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Tony Cooper
On Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:33:51 -0800, Charles Bishop

[snip-I asked about how to get a specific character]

Post by Tony Cooper
You do not press the + key. In this case, alt + 150 means "alt plus
150" or "alt and 150".

I did this once before, but I'll repeat it here to add that it's
difficult giving instructions on how to do something if there isn't a
common vocabulary or understanding.
If I press the alt key, keep it depressed and then type, sequentially 1,
??? these are three characters: upside down exclamation point,
infinity sign and degree character (for F or C).
There is obviously something in my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or my
computer software (iMac) that doesn't allow this convention. I'm
unlikely to need to use the characters obtained by using Alt and then a
number, but I was curious and tried it. Doesn't work, but I don't think
I need it to.

In a few efforts, I get

û û

I'm running Windows 7 on a laptop from HP, using Agent.

What I see is a u with a hat which was produced by alt+150,
and a dash which was produced by alt+0150, and then the
same two results when I did it again. I separated them by blanks.

I did not expect that the leading zero was needed, given the comments.
The numbers were all typed on the numeric keypad. The
computer beeps at me when I try alt+ (numbers from the top row.)

--
Rich Ulrich

Charles Bishop

2015-02-05 20:46:16 UTC

Post by Rich Ulrich
On Thu, 05 Feb 2015 09:06:30 -0800, Charles Bishop

[snip-I'm trying Alt 150]

Post by Rich Ulrich

Post by Charles Bishop
There is obviously something in my newsreader (NewsWatcher) or my
computer software (iMac) that doesn't allow this convention. I'm
unlikely to need to use the characters obtained by using Alt and then a
number, but I was curious and tried it. Doesn't work, but I don't think
I need it to.

Reading your post, I get your hatted u, then just the hat, these then
repeated on the same line.

Post by Rich Ulrich
I did not expect that the leading zero was needed, given the comments.
The numbers were all typed on the numeric keypad. The
computer beeps at me when I try alt+ (numbers from the top row.)

No numeric keyboard here, and I think I'm done. It's interesting, but I
don't have the depth of knowledge to need to use the symbols but I'm
glad to get the information.

--
charle

Lewis

2015-02-05 21:01:11 UTC

Post by Rich Ulrich
In a few efforts, I get
û û
I'm running Windows 7 on a laptop from HP, using Agent.
What I see is a u with a hat which was produced by alt+150,
and a dash which was produced by alt+0150, and then the
same two results when I did it again. I separated them by blanks.

You are posting in ISO-8859-1 instead of UTF8, so we are not going to
see the correct characters. You're em dash gets sent as û in both cases
because ISO-8859-1 (also called LATIN-1) has a very limited character
set compared to UTF-8.

Post by Rich Ulrich
I did not expect that the leading zero was needed, given the comments.

It generally is.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Rich Ulrich

2015-02-05 23:37:41 UTC

On Thu, 5 Feb 2015 21:01:11 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Rich Ulrich
In a few efforts, I get
û ? û ?
I'm running Windows 7 on a laptop from HP, using Agent.
What I see is a u with a hat which was produced by alt+150,
and a dash which was produced by alt+0150, and then the
same two results when I did it again. I separated them by blanks.

You can't be entirely right about that because Charles sees two
different things. And I saw my original version until I changed my
settings just now. Set to UTF-8, I see hatted u and question mark.

This should be UTF-8, if my change was complete. I see what I saw
before.

û – û –

Post by Rich Ulrich
I did not expect that the leading zero was needed, given the comments.

It generally is.

--
Rich Ulrich

Dr Nick

2015-02-06 07:23:57 UTC

No, actually. Not only did it arrive correctly here, by the time it had
been through your machine the u-hat was intact but the m-dash was
unprintable and was presented to me a \226.

For the record, if I type either of those combinations I get absolutely
nothing. No characters, no cursor movement, nothing.

I can get an m-dash very easily though. Compose followed by three
minuses: — I suspect compose and two of them will give me an n-dash,
let's see: <- yes, there it is. It only appears when I press another
character as it's presumably waiting to see if there's a third to come.

My newsreader helpfully colours that true n-dash to distinguish it from
the merged hyphen/dash/minus that come from the key to the right of the
zero.

Stan Brown

2015-02-05 22:56:48 UTC

Post by Charles Bishop
If I press the alt key, keep it depressed and then type, sequentially 1,
??? these are three characters: upside down exclamation point,
infinity sign and degree character (for F or C).

It has to be on the numeric keypad. You can't get special characters
in Windows in that fashion by using the row of number keys.

http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/7tip.htm#Unicode

Lewis

2015-02-05 20:57:06 UTC

Post by Tony Cooper
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:48:32 -0800, Charles Bishop

Post by Steve Hayes
In the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, such dashes were
usually set
off with a thin space. A decent word processor with proportional
fonts should
insert a thin space there automatically. Of course in Ascii text,
which the OP
was using, a space is a space is a space.

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type
space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Alt+ 0150

What does this mean? Is it a sequence of keys to be pressed to get the
desired result? Is it in a table somewhere?

On your keyboard, press and hold the alt key and enter 0150.

???? is what I get. No telling what you'll see

Those were instructions for Windows. Upthread I gave the instructions
for OS X.

option+- produces a en dash and shift-option+- an em dash.

option-n plus n produces ñ and option-e plue aeiou produces áéíóú.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-01 21:02:25 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

Ant

2015-02-02 00:46:44 UTC

Post by Katy Jennison
One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

Ctrl-minus (on the keypad). Em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-minus. I don't know what
happens if you have a "virtual keypad" that uses some of the letter keys.

For me in Windows XP Pro SP3 in SeaMonkey's e-mail composer and
Terminal (SSH2 to Linux boxes), nothing happens. :( Is this only for
Word?

Lewis

2015-02-01 22:44:19 UTC

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

On the Mac, en dash is option+- and an em dash is option-shift+-

On lesser machines going back to Windows XP, you turn on numlock and
then, using the numeric keypad:

hold alt and type 0150 for an en dash
hold alt and type 0151 for an em dash

Long ago in the dark days, I had a little strip of paper showing about a
dozen frequently needed codes. Thankfully, I have forgotten them all and
had to go look those two up for you.

On some keyboards, it is said, it must be the LEFT Alt key. I don't know
if this is true or not, but I always used the left alt, so perhaps.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Ant

2015-02-02 00:51:23 UTC

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

If you're using Word or something equally accomplished, simply add a line
to the AutoCorrect dictionary. In the left column type space-hyphen-space,
and in the right column type space-en-dash-space.

Thanks, that sounds promising, except that I can't find an en-dash to
type in. I'll try copying one.

On the Mac, en dash is option+- and an em dash is option-shift+-
On lesser machines going back to Windows XP, you turn on numlock and
hold alt and type 0150 for an en dash

Dash.

Post by Lewis
hold alt and type 0151 for an em dash

Ahh, a longer line in my SeaMonkey v2.32 in Windows XP Pro SP3 machine!
Can every electronic readers show this correctly or do I need to stick
with two hyphens (--)? :P

I tried this in Linux terminal (SSH) and got weird results (^x and %
symbol o):

Post by Lewis
Long ago in the dark days, I had a little strip of paper showing about a
dozen frequently needed codes. Thankfully, I have forgotten them all and
had to go look those two up for you.

IIRC, ANSI/ASCII exteended codes? I remember them in my Apple //c
manual.

Percival P. Cassidy

2015-02-02 01:31:07 UTC

I do the same in all my writing that uses proportional fonts.
"Give my em dashes room to breathe!"

One of my previous word-processing programmes helpfully converted a
hyphen to a dash automatically if it perceived that there were spaces
around it. I miss that.

LibreOffice Writer, which claims to emulate M$ Word, converts
character_dash_dash_character to character_en-dash_character. It
converts character_space_dash_dash_space_character to
character_space_em-dash_space_character. I do *not* like the additional
spaces around the em-dash: an em-dash already separates the adjacent
characters by a decent amount; I don't need then separated by spaces as
well.

Perce

Steve Hayes

2015-02-01 17:45:58 UTC

Post by Ant
Hello.
What is the standard/common way to quote, like shown in my
signature below, in ASCII text format? Is it two dashes with a
space before and none after? I have seen some have spaces after the
two dashes. I am confused. I don't think ASCII texts have a very
long horizontal line so two dashes are used? :(

Some word processors will automatically convert two hyphens into an
en or em dash (I forget which), but it is better to leave a space
after the dash, because the same word processors will often flag it
as a spelling error if you don't, and searches will often fail to
find the word .

As have I, and sometimes I pull e-mails, and newsgroup postings into a
database for future reference, and if there isn't a space between a dash and
the word, it doesn't find it.

It also doesn't find those AEuroTrademark things that so many people seem to
sprinkle their writing with nowadays.

Post by Peter Moylan
The "no space after" used by Ant to attribute something looks
reasonable, because in that case the dash is not being used as a
parenthesis.

Even so, it makes the first word hard to find in a search.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Garrett Wollman

2015-02-01 17:51:30 UTC

Post by Steve Hayes
It also doesn't find those AEuroTrademark things that so many people seem to
sprinkle their writing with nowadays.

That's just mojibake.

-GAWollman

Eric Walker

2015-02-01 09:56:02 UTC

"Common" is a slippery word. The Chicago Manual of Style, a frequently
used reference for style, states (at2.75, Dashes and hyphens, 14th ed.)
"Hyphens and en dashes, and em dashes within sentences, should be set
with no extra space on either side, that is, no more than naturally
occurs between letters."

One could argue that inasmuch as the dash is already a powerful break in
whatever thought is flowing in a statement, to set it off with spaces
would further increase its intensity, so that in effect a raised voice
becomes a shout.

In bare minimal text, a pair of hyphens is typically used to emulate an
em dash--like that. Heaven knows how one is supposed to emulate an en
dash.

--
Cordially,
Eric Walker

Lewis

2015-02-01 19:21:10 UTC

Post by Eric Walker

"Common" is a slippery word. The Chicago Manual of Style, a frequently
used reference for style, states (at2.75, Dashes and hyphens, 14th ed.)
"Hyphens and en dashes, and em dashes within sentences, should be set
with no extra space on either side, that is, no more than naturally
occurs between letters."
One could argue that inasmuch as the dash is already a powerful break in
whatever thought is flowing in a statement, to set it off with spaces
would further increase its intensity, so that in effect a raised voice
becomes a shout.
In bare minimal text, a pair of hyphens is typically used to emulate an
em dash--like that. Heaven knows how one is supposed to emulate an en
dash.

In ASCII I will set off a em dash ("--") with spaces, I think most of the
time. With proportional fonts and a real em dash, no spaces.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Jerry Friedman

2015-02-01 22:25:41 UTC

Post by Eric Walker

"Common" is a slippery word. The Chicago Manual of Style, a frequently
used reference for style, states (at2.75, Dashes and hyphens, 14th ed.)
"Hyphens and en dashes, and em dashes within sentences, should be set
with no extra space on either side, that is, no more than naturally
occurs between letters."
One could argue that inasmuch as the dash is already a powerful break in
whatever thought is flowing in a statement, to set it off with spaces
would further increase its intensity, so that in effect a raised voice
becomes a shout.

If one were to argue that, I would agree.

Post by Eric Walker
In bare minimal text, a pair of hyphens is typically used to emulate an
em dash--like that. Heaven knows how one is supposed to emulate an en
dash.

With a hyphen, perhaps unfortunately.

--
Jerry Friedman

Anton Shepelev

2015-02-02 11:34:52 UTC

What is the standard/common way to quote, like
shown in my signature below, in ASCII text format?
Is it two dashes with a space before and none af-
ter? I have seen some have spaces after the two
dashes. I am confused. I don't think ASCII texts
have a very long horizontal line so two dashes are
used? :(

I think all respondents misunderstood you. What you
are talking about is the signature separator and
consists of two minuses and a space: '-- '. This is
the standard convension. See, for example, section
4.3 "Usenet Signature Convention", here:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3676.txt

Many e-mail- and newsreaders rely on it to detect
signatures to format them differently from the mes-
sage body. Some programs forcefully display them in
a monospace font, while my opinion is that a
monospace font should be default in all ASCII-based
media and especially in Usenet.

Ant on!

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-02 14:36:58 UTC

I think all respondents misunderstood you. What you
are talking about is the signature separator and
consists of two minuses and a space: '-- '.

They are not minuses, they are hyphens. You should have got at least that
much out of the discussion.

Anton Shepelev

2015-02-02 15:59:40 UTC

Post by Ant
What is the standard/common way to quote, like
shown in my signature below, in ASCII text
format? Is it two dashes with a space before
and none after? I have seen some have spaces
after the two dashes. I am confused. I don't
think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal
line so two dashes are used? :(

I think all respondents misunderstood you. What
you are talking about is the signature separator
and consists of two minuses and a space: '-- '.

They are not minuses, they are hyphens. You should
have got at least that much out of the discussion.

ASCII symbol 0x2D is used for both the minus and the
hyphen, which is why its standard name is hyphen-mi-
nus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus .

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-02 16:48:53 UTC

Post by Ant
What is the standard/common way to quote, like
shown in my signature below, in ASCII text
format? Is it two dashes with a space before
and none after? I have seen some have spaces
after the two dashes. I am confused. I don't
think ASCII texts have a very long horizontal
line so two dashes are used? :(

I think all respondents misunderstood you. What
you are talking about is the signature separator
and consists of two minuses and a space: '-- '.

They are not minuses, they are hyphens. You should
have got at least that much out of the discussion.

ASCII symbol 0x2D is used for both the minus and the
hyphen, which is why its standard name is hyphen-mi-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus .

Yet another strike against computer engineers.

Hyphens and minus signs are NOT the same, visually. (Computerese:
they are different glyphs.)

Anton Shepelev

2015-02-02 17:32:09 UTC

Post by Anton Shepelev
ASCII symbol 0x2D is used for both the minus and
the hyphen, which is why its standard name is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus .

Yet another strike against computer engineers.

If you knew about computer engeneering, you would
have never said so. ASCII is the fundamental code
page still widely used today. Having been designed
in the time of character-cell devices and monospace
fonts, it does not distunguish between the hyphen
and the minus. The overwhelming majority of comput-
er languages are based on ASCII.

Even serious typesetting systems such as Troff and
LaTeX initially accepted only ASCII sources, but
were later modified to support other encodings. The
constructs of their languages are still pure ASCII.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Hyphens and minus signs are NOT the same, visual-
ly. (Computerese: they are different glyphs.)

Depends on what your code page is.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-02 19:42:57 UTC

[no, he didn't]

Post by Anton Shepelev
ASCII symbol 0x2D is used for both the minus and
the hyphen, which is why its standard name is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen-minus .

Yet another strike against computer engineers.

If you knew about computer engeneering, you would
have never said so. ASCII is the fundamental code
page still widely used today. Having been designed
in the time of character-cell devices and monospace
fonts, it does not distunguish between the hyphen
and the minus. The overwhelming majority of comput-
er languages are based on ASCII.
Even serious typesetting systems such as Troff and
LaTeX initially accepted only ASCII sources, but
were later modified to support other encodings. The
constructs of their languages are still pure ASCII.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that hyphens and minus signs
and two lengths of dashes are all different things and should never have been
labeled with the same label.

Post by Peter T. Daniels
Hyphens and minus signs are NOT the same, visual-
ly. (Computerese: they are different glyphs.)

Depends on what your code page is.

No. It is a simple fact.

Richard Tobin

2015-02-03 01:22:00 UTC

Post by Peter T. Daniels
That has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that hyphens and minus signs
and two lengths of dashes are all different things and should never have been
labeled with the same label.

In the past, computers couldn't afford all those characters, so they
had to make do with one for all of them. Bits are much cheaper now,
but we can't start again from scratch so the consequences will be
around for decades.

-- Richard

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-03 04:14:09 UTC

I really don't care what computers could and could not do. The four things
are four different things, and there was type for more than 300 years before
there were typewriters.

Dr Nick

2015-02-03 07:30:21 UTC

I really don't care what computers could and could not do. The four things
are four different things, and there was type for more than 300 years before
there were typewriters.

Yes, but it started with typewriters. My grandfather had quite a
respectable one that he used to edit the parish magazine for many
years. That didn't have several characters - I particularly remember
that you made an exclamation mark by 'backspace.

Blaming computers (well, computer engineers) for it (heck, *blaming*
anyone for any aspect of the pragmatics of design) is what you'd expect
from someone who ...(wanders off into endless list about El Paso, mild
steel, runcible, percolators and many other things that have already
been established).

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-03 13:34:51 UTC

I really don't care what computers could and could not do. The four things
are four different things, and there was type for more than 300 years before
there were typewriters.

Yes, but it started with typewriters. My grandfather had quite a
respectable one that he used to edit the parish magazine for many
years. That didn't have several characters - I particularly remember
that you made an exclamation mark by 'backspace.
Blaming computers (well, computer engineers) for it (heck, *blaming*
anyone for any aspect of the pragmatics of design) is what you'd expect
from someone who ...(wanders off into endless list about El Paso, mild
steel, runcible, percolators and many other things that have already
been established).

? What is "percolators" doing on that list?

And "runcible."

Charles Bishop

2015-02-04 02:43:43 UTC

I really don't care what computers could and could not do. The four things
are four different things, and there was type for more than 300 years before
there were typewriters.

Yes, but it started with typewriters. My grandfather had quite a
respectable one that he used to edit the parish magazine for many
years. That didn't have several characters - I particularly remember
that you made an exclamation mark by 'backspace.
Blaming computers (well, computer engineers) for it (heck, *blaming*
anyone for any aspect of the pragmatics of design) is what you'd expect
from someone who ...(wanders off into endless list about El Paso, mild
steel, runcible, percolators and many other things that have already
been established).

? What is "percolators" doing on that list?
And "runcible."

Do you admit to the other errors and only question those two?

--
chrles, so it would seem

Wayne Brown

2015-02-03 19:22:15 UTC

Post by Dr Nick
Yes, but it started with typewriters. My grandfather had quite a
respectable one that he used to edit the parish magazine for many
years. That didn't have several characters - I particularly remember
that you made an exclamation mark by 'backspace.

I remember using typewriters that had no numeral "1" on the keyboard.
You used a lower case "l" instead. I also remember using Teletype
keyboards with no lower case letters.

One of the first computers I ever used was a Tektronix that did not erase
characters on the screen when you backspaced. If you were writing a
program and wanted to change a line then you typed over the existing line
and could see one on top of the other, just as if you were overwriting a
line on a typewriter. From time to time it was necessary to refresh the
screen and get a clean copy displayed, else it would become unreadable
(unless, of course, you never made mistakes that had to be corrected).

--
F. Wayne Brown <***@bellsouth.net>

ur sag9-ga ur-tur-še3 ba-an-kur9
"A dog that is played with turns into a puppy." (Sumerian proverb)

Dr Nick

2015-02-03 19:32:25 UTC

I remember using typewriters that had no numeral "1" on the keyboard.
You used a lower case "l" instead. I also remember using Teletype
keyboards with no lower case letters.

I think that was another. I don't think it had a zero either - you used
an upper case 'O'

Post by Wayne Brown
One of the first computers I ever used was a Tektronix that did not erase
characters on the screen when you backspaced. If you were writing a
program and wanted to change a line then you typed over the existing line
and could see one on top of the other, just as if you were overwriting a
line on a typewriter. From time to time it was necessary to refresh the
screen and get a clean copy displayed, else it would become unreadable
(unless, of course, you never made mistakes that had to be corrected).

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

Mack A. Damia

2015-02-03 20:21:14 UTC

On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 19:32:25 +0000, Dr Nick

I remember using typewriters that had no numeral "1" on the keyboard.
You used a lower case "l" instead. I also remember using Teletype
keyboards with no lower case letters.

I think that was another. I don't think it had a zero either - you used
an upper case 'O'

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

Do you mean something like this:

"Now I buy Callard & Bowser's "Altoids", which com^H^H^Hare supplied
in a flatter tin, but are otherwise curiously similar."

This was used frequently in the old newsgroup I subscribed to. It was
supposed to be the old way of correcting text and was used for humor.

--

Richard Tobin

2015-02-03 21:15:08 UTC

Post by Mack A. Damia
"Now I buy Callard & Bowser's "Altoids", which com^H^H^Hare supplied
in a flatter tin, but are otherwise curiously similar."
This was used frequently in the old newsgroup I subscribed to. It was
supposed to be the old way of correcting text and was used for humor.

It wasn't just supposed to be the old way; it was something that
occasionally happened by mistake both in email and usenet articles.

If the author had his terminal settings wrong, or used the backspace
key when he should have used delete, pressing backspace would merely
move the cursor back one space. Typing over the old characters would
remove them from display, so that to the author they appeared to have
been deleted, but the message sent would contain both the old and the
new text with some backspace characters in between. Depending on the
software used by the reader of the message this might well appear as
in your example.

As you say, it was later used for humorous effect.

-- Richard

Garrett Wollman

2015-02-03 21:38:03 UTC

Post by Richard Tobin
As you say, it was later used for humorous effect.

"Writing under erasure" is, I believe, the technical term. ^W was
also commonly seen (control-W was the default WERASE character on some
system or other). In HTML, you'd write <s>old t</s>new text, which
renders by default as a strike-through.

-GAWollman

Charles Bishop

2015-02-04 02:43:05 UTC

Post by Garrett Wollman

Post by Richard Tobin
As you say, it was later used for humorous effect.

I learned the ^H erased a letter and ^W erased the previous word or word
fragment, back to the next space.

Charles

Lewis

2015-02-04 07:25:16 UTC

It wasn't just supposed to be the old way; it was something that
occasionally happened by mistake both in email and usenet articles.

I was once invited to join a secret-ish forum based on the accidental
control sequences I left in a public forum post. It was obvious I knew
how to use the editor so I was allowed in the 'club'.

Post by Richard Tobin
If the author had his terminal settings wrong, or used the backspace
key when he should have used delete, pressing backspace would merely
move the cursor back one space. Typing over the old characters would
remove them from display, so that to the author they appeared to have
been deleted, but the message sent would contain both the old and the
new text with some backspace characters in between. Depending on the
software used by the reader of the message this might well appear as
in your example.
As you say, it was later used for humorous effect.

I still use ^W sometimes, but I think most people don't know what that
is, based on the prevalence of ^H^H^H^H instead.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Wayne Brown

2015-02-04 18:35:06 UTC

Post by Mack A. Damia
On Tue, 03 Feb 2015 19:32:25 +0000, Dr Nick

I remember using typewriters that had no numeral "1" on the keyboard.
You used a lower case "l" instead. I also remember using Teletype
keyboards with no lower case letters.

I think that was another. I don't think it had a zero either - you used
an upper case 'O'

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

"Now I buy Callard & Bowser's "Altoids", which com^H^H^Hare supplied
in a flatter tin, but are otherwise curiously similar."
This was used frequently in the old newsgroup I subscribed to. It was
supposed to be the old way of correcting text and was used for humor.

No, what you describe is caused by a user's terminal settings not
setting the "erase" character properly for whatever key is being used
for backspace. I still run into that once in awhile when logging into
UNIX or Linux servers where the default profiles don't match the terminal
settings I normally use, and I fix it temporarily with the stty command.

The phenomenon I was describing would have the "com" printed on the
screen and then the "are" displayed in exactly the same three character
positions, so that the latter characters overlay the former.

--
F. Wayne Brown <***@bellsouth.net>

ur sag9-ga ur-tur-še3 ba-an-kur9
"A dog that is played with turns into a puppy." (Sumerian proverb)

Richard Tobin

2015-02-03 21:04:09 UTC

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

The terminal in question is a "storage scope": the CRT itself
remembers what has been drawn. When the electron beam hits the
phosphor it lights up and remains lit until the whole screen is
cleared (by scanning with a higher energy beam). They were commonly
used for vector graphics in the 1970s.

Google for "tektronix 4014" for more information and pictures.

The xterm terminal emulator can emulate a 4014.

-- Richard

Dr Nick

2015-02-04 07:17:05 UTC

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

The terminal in question is a "storage scope": the CRT itself
remembers what has been drawn. When the electron beam hits the
phosphor it lights up and remains lit until the whole screen is
cleared (by scanning with a higher energy beam). They were commonly
used for vector graphics in the 1970s.
Google for "tektronix 4014" for more information and pictures.
The xterm terminal emulator can emulate a 4014.

Oh good - my assumption was about right. The earliest things I ever
understood the insides of were some Raytheon ones of the late
1970s/early 80s that used an enormous shift-register for the display
memory.

Mark Brader

2015-02-07 03:52:17 UTC

Post by Wayne Brown
One of the first computers

(He meant "computer terminals".)

Post by Wayne Brown
I ever used was a Tektronix that did not erase
characters on the screen when you backspaced.

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

Oh good - my assumption was about right.

Yes, except for the part about the memory being digital (implied by
referring to the display as made up of "dots"). As Richard said,
these terminals did vector graphics and could display a true straight
line from anywhere on the screen to anywhere else on the screen.

In principle they could have displayed text in different fonts by
constructing the letters from tiny straight lines, but I guess it
would have been too slow and/or required too much internal memory
to store the fonts, so lettering on the screen *was* made up of dots.

By the way, the process of writing new text or vectors produced stray
electrons that made the phosphor in that area flash brightly for a moment.
I found that rather appealing. Watching the bright area proceed along
the screen was sort of the visual analogue of listening to a printing
terminal that used a Selectric-type typeball or a daisywheel and made
noise at the specific place where it was printing. Similarly, when the
screen got full and you cleared it, the whole screen flashed brightly.

--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Don't let it drive you crazy...
***@vex.net | Leave the driving to us!" --Wayne & Shuster

My text in this article is in the public domain.

Wayne Brown

2015-02-09 00:03:42 UTC

Post by Wayne Brown
One of the first computers

(He meant "computer terminals".)

No, it was a microcomputer with built-in BASIC and a cartridge tape
drive for storage. It had the same type of display as the Tektronix
terminals and could be used as a terminal when attached to a modem
with an acoustic coupler but it was a computer in its own right.
My BASIC class at Northwest Mississippi Junior College used them for
our lab work, and the FORTRAN class used them with the acoustic modems
to connect as terminals to a computer at the University of Mississippi
for their lab assignments. By the time I took FORTRAN the school had
gotten an IBM System 34 to use instead. It took several weeks for IBM
to get the FORTRAN compiler installed and working so the teacher had us
use our lab time during that period to learn about the operating system.
I figured out a few things like how to explore the system libraries and
how to create new hidden libraries for myself when the one that was
assigned to me ran out of space. The data center manager noticed me
poking around, and instead of chastising me he gave me access to all
the system documentation and encouraged me to explore further.

--
F. Wayne Brown <***@bellsouth.net>

ur sag9-ga ur-tur-še3 ba-an-kur9
"A dog that is played with turns into a puppy." (Sumerian proverb)

Mark Brader

2015-02-09 06:39:35 UTC

Post by Wayne Brown
One of the first computers

(He meant "computer terminals".)

Oops, sorry. I hadn't heard of that configuration.

--
Mark Brader, Toronto "More importantly, Mark is just plain wrong."
***@vex.net -- John Hollingsworth

Wayne Brown

2015-02-09 13:11:44 UTC

Post by Wayne Brown
One of the first computers

(He meant "computer terminals".)

Oops, sorry. I hadn't heard of that configuration.

Here's a link to an article about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_405x

--
F. Wayne Brown <***@bellsouth.net>

ur sag9-ga ur-tur-še3 ba-an-kur9
"A dog that is played with turns into a puppy." (Sumerian proverb)

Wayne Brown

2015-02-04 18:35:10 UTC

I've never seen anything like that. I think that means that it used
some sort of memory of the dots to be displayed, rather than generating
them from the characters each time the screen has scanned.

The terminal in question is a "storage scope": the CRT itself
remembers what has been drawn. When the electron beam hits the
phosphor it lights up and remains lit until the whole screen is
cleared (by scanning with a higher energy beam). They were commonly
used for vector graphics in the 1970s.
Google for "tektronix 4014" for more information and pictures.
The xterm terminal emulator can emulate a 4014.

Yes, that's just what I meant. The display drew both graphics and
characters in bright green lines that looked like they belonged on an
oscilloscope display.

Here's a link to a Wikipedia page for the systems I was talking about.
The picture on that page looks just like the ones I used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektronix_405x

--
F. Wayne Brown <***@bellsouth.net>

ur sag9-ga ur-tur-še3 ba-an-kur9
"A dog that is played with turns into a puppy." (Sumerian proverb)

Lewis

2015-02-04 07:19:51 UTC

We can just use UTF-8 everywhere as $DEITY intends.

--
http://2blog.kreme.com

Anton Shepelev

2015-02-03 09:22:43 UTC

ASCII is the fundamental code page still widely
used today. Having been designed in the time of
character-cell devices and monospace fonts, it
does not distunguish between the hyphen and the
minus. The overwhelming majority of computer
languages are based on ASCII.
Even serious typesetting systems such as Troff
and LaTeX initially accepted only ASCII sources,
but were later modified to support other encod-
ings. The constructs of their languages are
still pure ASCII.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact
that hyphens and minus signs and two lengths of
dashes are all different things and should never
have been labeled with the same label.

This is why the standard name for '-' in ASCII is
HYPHEN-MINUS. The terms 'hyphen' and 'minus' are
equally incorrect when applied to that character.
You should not insist on using one instead of the
other.

Hyphens and minus signs are NOT the same, vi-
sually. (Computerese: they are different
glyphs.)

Depends on what your code page is.

No. It is a simple fact.

As a linguist you know that context is king. The
ASCII code page has no characters named 'minus' or
'hyphen'.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-03 13:33:43 UTC

That has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact
that hyphens and minus signs and two lengths of
dashes are all different things and should never
have been labeled with the same label.

Hyphens and minus signs are NOT the same, vi-
sually. (Computerese: they are different
glyphs.)

Depends on what your code page is.

No. It is a simple fact.

As a linguist you know that context is king. The
ASCII code page has no characters named 'minus' or
'hyphen'.

_People_ have no need to have any awareness at all of ASCII code.

Anton Shepelev

2015-02-03 15:11:06 UTC

Peter T. Daniels: Yet another strike against com-
puter engineers. Hyphens and minus signs are
NOT the same, visually. (Computerese: they are
different glyphs.)

Anton Shepelev: Depends on what your code page is.

Peter T. Daniels: No. It is a simple fact.

Anton Shepelev: As a linguist you know that context
is king. The ASCII code page has no characters
named 'minus' or 'hyphen'.

Peter T. Daniels: _People_ have no need to have any
awareness at all of ASCII code.

That is whither you have come from your inital re-
mark about computer engeneers -- you are shifting
ground.

You have also forgotten that our dialogue started
from the concept of signature separator, which is
defined in terms of ASCII and cannot be understood
without elementary knowledge about character encod-
ings. Your appeal to computer illiteracy is there-
fore fallacious.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ http://preview.tinyurl.com/qcy6mjc [archived]

Peter T. Daniels

2015-02-03 15:51:59 UTC

Post by Anton Shepelev
Peter T. Daniels: Yet another strike against com-
puter engineers. Hyphens and minus signs are
NOT the same, visually. (Computerese: they are
different glyphs.)
Anton Shepelev: Depends on what your code page is.
Peter T. Daniels: No. It is a simple fact.
Anton Shepelev: As a linguist you know that context
is king. The ASCII code page has no characters
named 'minus' or 'hyphen'.
Peter T. Daniels: _People_ have no need to have any
awareness at all of ASCII code.
That is whither you have come from your inital re-
mark about computer engeneers -- you are shifting
ground.
You have also forgotten that our dialogue started
from the concept of signature separator, which is
defined in terms of ASCII and cannot be understood
without elementary knowledge about character encod-
ings. Your appeal to computer illiteracy is there-
fore fallacious.

I had no interest in signature separators. when the discussion drifted
to typography, I made my point.

Peter Moylan

2015-02-02 23:53:34 UTC