Comment by jeremy151
1 day ago
You're absolutely right! I kid. I'm also a former avid user of the em-dash, but have mostly stopped using it. I've even started replacing em-dash usage with commas, which often results in a slightly awkward, perhaps incorrect, but quaintly artisanal sentence with a LaCroix-like spritz of authenticity.
My double-space-after-a-period though, I will keep that until the end. Even if it often doesn't even render in HTML output, I feel a nostalgic connection to my 1993 high school typing teacher's insistence that a sentence must be allowed to breathe.
And by the way, what the Hell is up with all these people claiming that two spaces is an obsolete typewriter-era pre-proportional-font thing? Narrow proportional spaces make two spaces after a period MORE important for visually separating sentences. Is it old fashioned to think logically?
It’s old fashioned to think that space in the input relates to space in the output.
Yes, I find it useful while editing regardless of the final rendering. Maybe it's a quirk of how I process information visually, or a holdover from learning to type on an avocado green Selectric.
You know the only reason we used double spaces between sentences in the typewriter days was because everything was monospaced, right? Modern variable width fonts provide additional space automatically.
Sadly, the comma is not a good em-dash replacement. IME, periods and semicolons do the job best. I still use em-dashes in place of parentheses though because they're so much more readable.