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Posted by Safalra (Stephen Morley) on 10/25/07 20:02
On Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:54:34 +0100, Dylan Parry wrote:
> Els wrote:
>> I guess I'm using minus-hyphens then? hyphen next to the 0 key on my
>> keyboard: - hyphen above the + on my numeric pad: - Are they real
>> hyphens, or minuses?
>
> Yep, the hyphen-minus is the one next to the + key. They are neither a
> hyphen, nor a minus, but both and neither :) They were originally
> created as a character that could be used to represent both due to the
> lack of keys on a typewriter.
>
> Clever programs like Word etc are capable of interpreting which sort of
> dash or hyphen you need depending on the context, and will replace them
> in the same way as they do with quotation marks.
Unfortuantely algorithmically determining the correct character is rather
haphazard - just as such software is confused by my insistence on using an
apostrophe at the start of 'phone, it's also difficult for an algorithm to
tell that there should be an en-dash in the phrase "the letters B-Z occur
after A" but a hyphen in the phrase "the B-Z reaction demonstrates
non-equilibrium thermodynamics".
--
Safalra (Stephen Morley)
Web Typography:
http://www.safalra.com/web-design/typography/
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