Re: lynx-dev lynx2.8.2dev.19 patch #6 (em dash = --)

[David Combs]

On Mon, Mar 15, 1999 at 06:30:07PM -0500, Philip Webb wrote:
> 990315 David Combs wrote: 
> > What is easier to read of these two:
> > (1) Now is the time -- so they say -- for all good men to come...
> > (2) Now is the time--so they say--for all good men to come...
>  
> i suspect we've all forgotten the long debate (last year?) about this.
> i agree with DC that there should be spaces round the `--', ie (1),
> but isn't that for the author to insert as ` ' ?

Normally, I'd say yes, is for the author to insert (spaces).

HOWEVER -- the author is surely writing for a GUI-oriented
browser, generating NON-fixed-width chars on the screen,
eg times-roman or something.

What the author expects is for his emdash to appear on screen
AS a TRUE emdash, typeset.

Probably, the author has NO IDEA that there are people
who like looking at his stuff, or anyone's stuff (html),
via ancient outmoded stupid old-fashioned backwards-thinking
plain old typewriter chars, fixed width.

"What kind of idiot would choose to look at it via THAT?"

Well, we idiots, that's who!

So, since we have to display an em-dash by not one nice
wide typeset emdash, we have to use two hyphens.  The author
has NO IDEA anyone would do that.

Which is why WE must come up with OUR OWN translation -- as
WE see fit for our OWN ease of reading.

However, because opinions on this vary throughout this
mailing list, it should be an OPTION, settable by the
individual USER (not administrator!).

David