On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 03:36:01PM -0400, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:
On Sun, Jun 25, 2006 at 08:47:37PM +0200, Andrew Dunbar wrote:
The reason I ask is that I've been studying casually how they are typeset in books as part of my thinking about an XML format for e-texts. I have seen so many cases both with and without spaces that I've been pondering whether it would best be handled as a style issue.
You've seen commercial typesetting (that is, typesetting done by typographers, not computer scientists :-) that put full spaces around em-dashes?
I'd be interested in references myself, if you could lay hands on any.
For my own part, the only references I have on-hand at the moment are:
* one professional writer's reference (AP style and media law guide)
* a bunch of books that are professionally printed
* periodicals and news sources that are professionally printed
In my experience, spaces tend to be more common in literary works, and lack of spaces tends to be the norm in news media and the like -- though news media, et cetera, tends to frown on emdashes (or endashes for that matter) at least as much as it frowns on parentheses. This is borne out by the instruction set forth in the AP book.