Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Where the em dash is are grammatically incorrect spaces. The spaces should not be there.
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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.