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Originally Posted by phossler
Ah rats — I replaced it with space  — I though it looked funny
Never though about an em-dash |
Em Dashes are sometimes used this way in Fiction to interrupt (and then continue) dialogue:
See one article on the topic,
"When a Comma Isn't Enough":
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The recommendation in The Chicago Manual of Style is quite clear.
In the seventeenth edition, 6.87, we find:
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Em dashes for sudden breaks or interruptions. An em dash or a pair of em dashes may indicate a sudden break in thought or sentence structure or an interruption in dialogue. [Emphasis mine.]
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There’s even more explanation:
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If the break belongs to the surrounding sentence rather than to the quoted material, the em dashes must appear outside the quotation marks.
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And an example:
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“Someday he’s going to hit one of those long shots, and”—his voice turned huffy—“I won’t be there to see it.”
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It looks like your book decided to put em dashes within the quotation marks:
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“It precisely—” he glanced down at the watch strapped English-style to the underside of his free wrist “—one and one-half minutes [...].”
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phossler
I can get an unmodified copy from my backups and do it the right way
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What was the format of the source document?