User:Ozob/Endash sandbox

This sandbox is for discussion of changes to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style's rules on en dashes.

Topics of discussion

When are en dashes appropriate? The MoS currently lists the following uses as acceptable:

1. In ranges. This includes date ranges and other ranges. Examples: "11 January 1919 – 20 March 1919", "1939–1945", "pp. 211–19" "15,000 kW – 1,500 MW", "23° 26′ 16″ N – 23° 26′ 16″ S", "c. 387 – 17 March 493", "$10,000–$15,000 USD", "10–20%"
2. In disjunctions. Here, they stand in for and, or, versus, etc. (Are there any other words they stand in for?) Examples: "male–female ratio", "4–3 win", "Lincoln–Douglas debate", "France–Germany border", "diode–transistor logic", "Michelson–Morley experiment".
3. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes – like this.
4. As separators. This is kind of like the previous item. Example: "Track 1 – Song Title (4:33)".
5. As a replacement for hyphens.

Some of the above uses may not be appropriate in all contexts. Here are some contexts to consider:

1. In prose.
2. In parenthetical remarks.
3. In article titles.
4. In tables.

We need to determine: Which uses in which contexts should be allowed?

Finally, how should these be spaced? Convention is to space en dashes that are used as alternatives to em dashes and as separators. A previous RfC here determined that consensus was against forbidding spaced en dashes for ranges and disjunctions, primarily because of the possibility of visual traps such as "19 December 1919–20 January 1920". The consensus does not seem to clear to me for other kinds of spacing.

Ozob's proposal

Here's my first attempt at a proposed set of rules for en dashes. This is only a draft; I'm sure we can make this better. Everyone is welcome to post their own proposals (or parts of proposals) on this page.

1. To stand for to or through in ranges (pp. 211–19, 64–75%, the 1939–45 war). Ranges expressed using prepositions (from 450 to 500 people or between 450 and 500 people) should not use dashes (not from 450–500 people or between 450–500 people). Number ranges must be spelled out if they involve a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−10 to 10, not −10–10). If either endpoint of the range contains a space, insert spaces on either side of the en dash (5 January 1919 – 21 January 1919, 10 W – 100 kW). Otherwise, do not insert spaces.
2. To stand for to, and, or versus between independent elements (male–female ratio, 4–3 win, Lincoln–Douglas debate, diode–transistor logic, Seifert–van Kampen theorem). In this role, en dashes are never spaced. An en dash is not used for a hyphenated name (Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones) or an element that lacks lexical independence (the prefix Sino- in Sino-Japanese trade).
3. Optionally, in compounds whose elements contain hyphens or spaces (pre–World War II technologies, non–government-owned corporations).
4. In lists, to separate distinct information within points—for example, in articles about music albums, en dashes are used between track titles and durations, and between musicians and their instruments. These en dashes are always spaced.
5. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes (see below).

The remainder of that section would be left unchanged, including the rule on non-breaking spaces, en dashes in page names, and en dashes compared to minus signs.

I'm not sure I have an opinion about full dates, though 2 September 2009 – 3 February 2010 does not strike me as any better or less confusing than 2 September 2009–3 February 2010. I'd prefer to or through to a dash. For the other cases, I would use the dash without spaces, because

1. It's simpler to have one rule than several; it also seems less confusing to the reader.
2. It's more compact without the spaces.
3. At least to me, it's much less distracting.
4. There is no potential for confusion if used with spaced en dashes in place of em dashes.
5. It matches the recommendations of every style guide that I've ever read, and to my recollection, everything I've seen in professionally published. I don't suggest that I've read every style guide or every professionally published work, but simply that there is considerable precedent for the simplest approach.

With regard to case three being optional: what would be the alternative, especially for the first example? And how would one handle something such as “non–public forum”, or one of my all-time favorites, “pseudo–page transition”? Quite honestly, I'm not sure one rule would work for all situations. JeffConrad (talk) 04:25, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Note the difference when changing the example from "19 December 1919–20 January 1920" to "2 September 2009–3 February 2010". 1919–20 is much more likely to be misread as a range of years. Art LaPella (talk) 05:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

A fair point. To be honest, I haven't found an example of an en dash for a range of full dates in any style guide I've read; perhaps they ass-u-med that no one would ever use it, or perhaps they just never thought of it. I doubt that anyone would really misread it with the closed-up dash, but the reader might need to backtrack, which isn't good. But I can also envision a situation where the the spaces could be confusing, especially in an article that used spaced en dashes in place of em dashes: “For years, he had mistakenly thought his birthday was 1 April 1958 – 2 April 1958 was the actual date.” Contrived? Probably, but these two examples would seem to argue for using a preposition instead of a dash, and perhaps to stick with the em dash for its normal function. JeffConrad (talk) 22:37, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Even with these problems, though, I'm not sure it's a good idea to ban all en dashes in ranges in prose. What about something like, "Thompson et al found that 67–83% of all statistics are made up are made up on the spot. Johnson and Michelson estimated the rate at 55–78%, whereas a study by Masterson found a rate of 74–96%." It's possible to rewrite all of these using prepositions, but I don't think anything is gained. If anything, it seems less clear: There are so many more words that the numbers get lost. I suspect a similar thing happens with dates. E.g., from El Niño-Southern Oscillation: "Major ENSO events were recorded in the years 1790–93, 1828, 1876–78, 1891, 1925–26, 1972–73, 1982–83, and 1997–98." I think that would be terrible without en dashes. Ozob (talk) 12:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what "non–public forum" could mean other than "a forum not for the public, i.e., a non-public forum". The only other interpretation I could give it is "anything which is not a public forum, e.g., Tuesdays, a cat, cable TV, etc." which strikes me as too broad a class of items to be likely in context. So I don't see how the en dash makes a difference here. I'm not sure what a "pseudo–page transition" is, but I'm guessing that it's when a page transition is false, not when false pages are transitioned. Assuming I'm correct, then in this case, the en dash is a success.

I'm of two minds on en dashes in place of hyphens. On the one hand, if one of the dashed items has spaces, then using a relatively long en dash makes the spaces look relatively small and hence it helps to link everything together. If one of the dashed items has internal hyphens, then the en dash clearly distinguishes the two items being dashed. From this perspective, the en dash is better than a hyphen. But the en dash also causes the two items to stand further apart. That can make them look disconnected; something like "pre–Roman" would be better as "pre-Roman". The rule above seems okay to me, but I'm also not really confident in it. Ozob (talk) 12:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the arcane examples . . . The first term is an example I used on the MOS Talk page, and it apparently got lost in the kerfuffle. In American jurisprudence, a “non–public forum” is a place that is not a traditional public forum for the exercise of free speech. Unfortunately, the courts write it as “nonpublic forum”, which to someone unfamiliar with the intended meaning looks more like “a forum that isn't public”; essentially the same result obtains with “non-public forum”.

The “psueudo–page transition” was a bit of a joke. Much of the documentation for AT&T's troff was not known for its lucidity. A good example was this gem, which baffled almost everyone but author Joe Ossanna:

“A pseudo-page transition onto the first page occurs either when the first break occurs or when the first nondiverted text processing occurs.”

My first reaction, of course, was “What in the world is a pseudo page?” Translating the above into Earthspeak without getting into the details, the formatter didn't think it was in the document until either of the two events occurred; at that point, it made a “transition” onto the first page. Most versions of troff didn't have an en dash; had the passage above read “pseudo–page transition”, to indicate, essentially, a pseudo-(page transition), the meaning would have been crystal clear. Or not . . .

I don't suggest that either example with the en dash is elegant, but I think each is the least of the reasonably similar evils. In some cases, recasting might make the meaning more clear, but in a court opinion that used “non–public forum” several times, the more compact form is convenient; as a practical matter, “nonpublic forum” is sufficiently established that we're probably stuck with it. If we could treat text like mathematics and use parens for grouping, we could avoid many of these problems. Absent that, however, I think the en dash in place of a hyphen is often very useful. But at least for me, it's tough to establish a general rule, so that it's often a judgment call. For the examples here, I think “non–public forum” and “pseudo–page transition” are preferable to the alternatives.

It's a tougher call when there is more than one space; is “pre–World War II technologies” better than “pre-World-War-II technologies”? I think so, because I don't like the plethora of hypens, especially the last one. I also prefer the first en dash in the second example, though I think the advantage is less. In any event, if we indicate replacing a hyphen with an en dash is optional, it might help to also show the alternatives to make it easier for the reader to see the differences. JeffConrad (talk) 23:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Rather than use three hyphens, I'd write "pre-World War II technologies" which I think is just as clear; but I prefer the look of "pre–World War II technologies". I don't see anything wrong with "non-government-owned corporations", though. So far I'm not convinced there's a really compelling situation to use an en dash to mark a prefix when the word already contains a hyphen. Ozob (talk) 12:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

In this context, I don’t strongly disagree, though, at least at first glance, I would tend to read “pre-World War II technologies” as “(postpre-World) War II technologies”. I’d no doubt quickly recognize what was really meant, but the momentary double take would be distracting. And I’d read “post-Civil War” as (post-Civil) War, or the war after we were civil (which would probably include all wars . . .) But of course there is only one space in the latter example, so perhaps the situations aren’t comparable. JeffConrad (talk) 19:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Greetings, guys. Just checking in. Sorry I haven't had time to participate, but I want to thank Ozob for taking the initiative to set up this sand box. It looks like the discussion is moving in the right way. Quick comment re full date ranges: I think the spaced endash may work in parentheticals, and actually provide a helpful additional clue to the reader, for the reason identified by Art above. That having been said, using a full date span in prose/Wikipedia text just looks odd, is stylistically poor and defies the first rule of good typography: symbols and punctuations should be used to clarify, not confuse the reader. The real problem in this instance is that we are trying to make our humble friend, the endash, do more than it was intended to do. For date spans in prose/text, we should be using prepositions, not dashes.

I will pop back in soon. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:40, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

While I mostly agree with you, I'm not sure that we should utterly forbid en dashes in that context. For instance, what about, "New York City suffered major blackouts 9 November 1965, 13 July 1977 – 14 July 1977, 14 August 2003 – 16 August 2003, and 17 July 2006 – 24 July 2006."? Compare this with, "New York City suffered major blackouts 9 November 1965, from 13 July 1977 to 14 July 1977, from 14 August 2003 to 15 August 2003, and from 17 July 2006 to 24 July 2006." I prefer the former. The reason is because this sentence is really a list in prose. Because of this, the extra prepositions are just in the way; they don't make the sentence any clearer. So I'd like to retain the possibility of en dashes in full date ranges in prose. I think they should be discouraged but allowed. Ozob (talk) 02:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I’m fine with “discouraged but allowed”, and remain neutral on the spacing. In all other cases, I think en dashes should be unspaced. JeffConrad (talk) 03:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)