On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 10:33:27PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
On Thu, Jun 22, 2006 at 12:21:28PM -0600, Chad Perrin wrote:
Would requiring spaces on either side of the double dash before converting it into an emdash improve the parsing behavior any?
Please don't.
<snob type=typography> Em dashes are properly set in English text without spacing on either side, though the ASCIIography of this usage is much less picky.
If someone decides that it needs to be " -- " that's mapped, at least take the spaces out when setting the glyph?
</snob>
. . . except that the notion that it's strictly "foo--bar" instead of "foo -- bar" is a relatively recent phenomenon, and in times past whether or not there was a space was largely a matter of taste, regional custom, and (even farther back) what leads the typesetter had on-hand when he was laying out the page for pressing.