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Old 03-13-2012, 08:41 PM   #25
dwig
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf View Post
Where the em dash is are grammatically incorrect spaces. The spaces should not be there.
It is not at all "grammatically" incorrect. It is, instead, typographically incorrect to use a full width space before and after the em dash. I listed them only because then can exist and do trip up smartypants' logic.

Em dashes should be wrapped with a thin space if the glyph isn't designed to provide the space. Leaving out the space is a modern electronic font habit since may fonts and layout programs kern (letterspace) the character properly with a space. Traditionally (read: hand set metal type) a thin space should be added before and after an em dash. Since most fonts in ereaders seem to not provide any kerning/letterspacing and since most ereaders won't break a line at an em dash when there is no space, ebooks should have a space before and after an em dash when it occurs in its proper position between two words.

The examples I listed occur when my S&R sweeps miss this inappropriate use of trailing em dashes. Using such em dashes seems to have been common with some writers and publishers. In truth, they should be ellipses. I some times change them and sometimes retain the original typography. When my S&R sweeps work correctly, the trailing em dashes are spaced with a non-breaking space to avoid the evil "only the punctuation wraps" error, omitting the trailing space before the end punctuation.
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