The Gneech Would Be Proud

[rowyn]

I'm testing this new system for opening accounts online for one of our banks. My main contribution to this project has been picking grammatical and typographical nits and locating broken links.

I'm checking the FAQ, which I noticed at least four errors in the last time I looked.

This time I notice that it's using two en dashes instead of em dashes, and one hyphen instead of an em dash.

...

"It's an en dash! 99% of the people in the world do not know the difference between an en dash and an em dash! You have to look it up every time. And style guides differ on how to use them. Just let it go."

"... but later in the same document it uses an em dash correctly. So on one page it's got en dashes, hyphens, and em dashes all serving the exact same purpose."

... I tried to let it go. I really did. But I can't. It has to at least be consistent.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the thing. I do proofreading for people who use entirely different "style guides" (some of whom are on the other side of the Atlantic), so I have to swallow my pride on a number of points and not change everything to what I think is "correct."

However, there's just nothing right about it when it's not consistent within the same document. I don't CARE which way it is, as long as it STAYS that way throughout the document. Two hyphens here, a long em-dash there, a short en-dash separated by spaces over there ... AUGH!

I ran this scenario by Becky, the head word processing specialist here, and she sympathized. "I don't care which they use," she said, "just as long as it's consistent."

[rowyn]

Yes! If it had used hyphens instead of dashes everywhere, with no spaces around them, I would have gritted my teeth and said nothing (probably), even though it would look awful as well as being wrong by pretty much everyone's style guide. But inconsistency in a single document that's maybe 1000 words total? Guh.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, but that's a special pet peeve of mine-using a hyphen instead of an en-dash or em-dash, without any spaces-like this-quite possibly in the same sentence in which hyphens are used in the normal way.

I have run into that several times at my workplace-and I have no idea what possesses people to think that this actually looks readable on a page. ;)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

(In the previous example, my first reaction is to read this as having such strange pair words as "mine-using," "spaces-like," "this-quite," and "workplace-and.")

[rowyn]

I could read it with no processing errors, but I didn't really want to. >:)