posted
Dashes for interruption. Ellipses for when the speaker doesn't finish the sentence for some other reason.
Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
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posted
Hmm. I thought it was ellipses for interrupt, for precisely the reason you specified. They don't finish the sentence. Dashes usually separate a sentence with a new line of thinking, right?
I hit the ball -- not a big ball mind you -- and it went sailing over the roof.
"I hit the ball..." "No you didn't." "Yes, I did."
posted
Dashes for interruption, ellipses for a pause (or intentionally unfinished thought) or omitted words.
In Axe's example:
"I hit the ball..." "No, you didn't."
the first speaker is neither interrupted, nor has he noticeably left out any words. My inference from this dialogue is he let the phrase dangle, sort of like a whine or plea. If an interruption is meant, I'd try to make that clearer. Such as:
"I hit the ball to--" "No, you didn't."
In Smaug's example, the first speaker is clearly interrupted (though I'd argue the explanatory tag is redundant).
"I can't stand pajamas; they are so--" "Where's the peanut butter?" Bart said.
posted
Okay Rebekah! Redundant yes, but not really any sentence I'm actually working with, so I just wanted to make it clear that the dialog in question was because of an interruption. But then, that makes it extra redundant, doesn't it? Thanks for the help!
[This message has been edited by Smaug (edited October 07, 2011).]
posted
Forget the pajamas; I need to know where the damned peanut butter is. My wife isn't here to tell me.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Also, as I recently found out whilst formatting ebooks - all of the dashes above should be em dashes (as should the one in this sentence), which is Alt-Ctrl-NumberPadMinus in MS Word. And when you separate part of a sentence - like this - you don't put spaces between the words and the em dashes. So it looks-naturally-sort of like this. The other dash, the en dash, is used primarily for ranges and dates. RIP John Doe, 1965 - 2011 (en dash). I think en dash is Ctrl-NumberPadMinus in Word. It's a bit more of a pain in the butt to get keyboard shortcuts to work for those on a Mac. Doable (and googleable), but a little of a pain.
Posts: 500 | Registered: May 2008
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quote:Also, as I recently found out whilst formatting ebooks - all of the dashes above should be em dashes (as should the one in this sentence), which is Alt-Ctrl-NumberPadMinus in MS Word. And when you separate part of a sentence - like this - you don't put spaces between the words and the em dashes. So it looks-naturally-sort of like this. The other dash, the en dash, is used primarily for ranges and dates. RIP John Doe, 1965 - 2011 (en dash). I think en dash is Ctrl-NumberPadMinus in Word. It's a bit more of a pain in the butt to get keyboard shortcuts to work for those on a Mac. Doable (and googleable), but a little of a pain.
Or, you can just set Word's auto correct feature to make a double dash into an em dash. I have that turned off right now, for proper ms formatting. But it's not too hard to do a search and replace.
posted
@extrinsic THANKYOUSOMUCHHOWDIDINOTKNOWTHIS. My life is sooooo much better with mac shortcuts—i don't know how i lived without them.
Posts: 500 | Registered: May 2008
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I should note I do this stuff for a living, lately as a paid editorial assistant for a respected digest, as well as a self-employed freelancer, and paid writing mentor. So many styles to work off of, from, and toward, so many variants: mechnical styles, processes and strategies, hardwares, softwares, applications, outcomes; many, many, many technologies and principles to bring to bear.
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Thanks for the help!
