

The Case—Please Hear Me Out—Against the Em Dash - coolpixar
http://www.slate.com/id/2295413/

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chalst
There's two points being made here and they're not all that clearly
distinguished. First, excursions, where a new thought is interpolated into a
sentence before the previous one is complete, can be tiring.

Second, people use em dashes where other punctuation would be more
appropriate—the article illustrates this nicely, where lots of em dashes are
used that would better be commas or semicolons. Em dashes are the most
emphatic punctuation for communicating excursions, so the two points are
related.

Indeed, em dashes should be used sparingly, as exclamation marks are, since
they are visually distracting. _Chicago_ suggests that no paragraph should
contain more than two em dashes, and most should not contain that many. By my
reckoning, Noreen Malone packed 14 em dashes into each of two paragraphs in
her article.

But the fairly mechanical task of turning dashes into other punctuation
doesn't tackle the point about excessively excursive writing. And here I don't
agree that they are the enemy of "truly efficient writing". Excursions can be
a sign of mental disorganisation in the writer, one who isn't writing with
clear purpose, but they can also be the sign of a successful reworking of
complex material, to present it in the most digestible manner. I don't think
that "excursions bad" is useful advice, rather I suggest "check that
excursions are of clear value".

I have three excursions in this comment, and I think all pass this "clear
value" test; as an exercise, you can check if you agree with me. There's an em
dash too.

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raganwald
The article makes some good points that are obscured by the ridiculous conceit
of overusing the em dash. This is like arguing that since running 100 miles in
a day will hurt your feet, running is a bad idea.

Even the title is a misuse of the em dash. An excursion to plead for patience
on the part of the reader should only come when the beginning of the sentence
is likely to irritate people. The words "The Case" aren't going to annoy
readers, so pleading for people to please hear the author out is annoying.
THAT is the problem with the title. Not the presence of an excursion or
parenthetical remark, but the presence of an annoying and meaningless
excursion manufactured to make the author seem witty. And so it is with the
rest of the post, the excursions are all so blatantly manufactured and
artificial, it is impossible to hold them up as examples of why the em dash is
a bad idea.

To me, the article demonstrates why conceits are a bad idea. Trying to be too
clever obscures your message rather than reinforces it.

~~~
pasbesoin
I couldn't bring myself to read it. I think you summarize my
instinctive/intuitive/gut-level reaction. (Literally gut level, which is why I
stopped.)

This reminds me so much of what I hate about much of the pedagogy of
"writing". Formulaic writing is just that, formulaic. It may work well in the
artifice of a classroom; not so much in the real world.

Strictures can be useful, e.g. in technical documentation. But even there, it
takes some creativity to communicate clearly and effectively. "No more than
two em dashes per paragraph" simply doesn't cut it.

Oh, and to the author of the Slate article: Allow me to introduce you to the
en dash –. Buwahaha...

~~~
chalst
"gut-level" - Let's say this is the stylistic equivalent of a fart joke. I
think it worked well enough

Rather firm limits on the density of em dashes are fair, because there's a
typographical issue of avoiding "horizontal rivers": the distracting effect of
dashes varies nonlinearly with their number. An upper limit of two, per
_Chicago_ , or three, is a good usage stricture; there is practically never a
strong reason to violate it.

"en dash" - Fair enough, but she's following AP style, which uses em dashes.

~~~
pasbesoin
I didn't actually use the en dash in an appropriate context, such as "1 – 7".

I don't use em dashes profusely. However, I'm reminded of bumping into
arbitrary rules that mandated rewriting something into a more awkward form in
order to comply with the rules.

There is a certain subset of instructors who confuse students with rules more
than they aid them in learning to communicate clearly.

As for the style guides. Well, I don't know how things are these days, but
there was also a not insignificant portion of pedagogy devoted to blind
adherence to one or another. All the more confusing when a young student is
not really working in a context that allows the student to see where, how, and
why the rules make sense. Cart before the horse, I guess I might say.

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pohl
The article makes a case against hammers by showing how ugly it is to see one
bashing a skull.

Meanwhile, hammers still useful.

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joelmichael
I think this article was hilarious in how it demonstrated the problems with
the em dash. Honestly, I couldn't even finish it because the style was so
frustrating...

But I still like it, and I know the author does too. The em dash is an
artistic tool which gives a bit of humanity to the author. It makes it feel a
little less calculated and a little more free-form. I respect professionalism,
but even professionals like to let loose with their heart from time to time,
to reveal their stream of consciousness, and the em dash is a tool in that
regard. The real message here isn't that the em dash is evil, just that we
should avoid over-using it.

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nolanw
This article is unreadable. And that may be the point.

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zyfo
The author likens it with a pack of cigarette a day. It would be more apt if
she compared it with wine, where a glass a day has proven to be beneficial.

She quoted it herself: _"Use a dash only when a more common mark of
punctuation seems inadequate."_

 _Who are we, we modern writers, to pass judgment—and with such shocking
frequency—on these more simple forms of punctuation—the workmanlike comma, the
stalwart colon, the taken-for-granted period? (One colleague—arguing
strenuously that certain occasions call for the dash instead of other
punctuation, for purposes of tone—told me he thinks of the parenthesis as a
whisper, and the dash as a way of calling attention to a phrase._

Right, so because you as a modern writer don't want to pass judgment we should
stop using it? I'm on her colleague's side on this one.

EDIT: Embarassing gender confusion. Thanks for the correction.

