[DejaVu-bugs] [Bug 10366] EM DASH (U+2014) should be shorter than HORIZONTAL BAR (U+2015)

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10366





--- Comment #10 from Etan Wexler <bugs.freedesktop.org at r-6.org>  2008-06-29 13:22:52 PST ---
Comment #2 is incorrect on several counts. (I’ve edited the passages that
I’ve quoted in order to use the intended punctuation and so forth.)

> So for example, Horizontal bar would be used like this:
> 
> ―“To be, or not to be.”

The horizontal bar (quotation dash) fits in the capacity of introducing quoted
text, but the use of a quotation dash and the use of quotation marks are
mutually exclusive at least in good American English typography and in good
British English typography. For a given quotation, use one or the other, not
both.

> Em dash would be used like this:
> 
> “To be, or not to be.” ——William Shakespeare
> 
> Note how em dash is usually used in pairs, and there is supposed to be a small
> gap between the two dashes.

Please read section the subsection “Dashes and Hyphens” of section 6.2 of
version 5.0 of the Unicode Standard
(<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.0.0/ch06.pdf>):

“U+2014 em dash is used to make a break—like this—in the flow of a
sentence. (Some typographers prefer to use U+2013 en dash set off with spaces
– like this – to make the same kind of break.)”

It’s true that a comment in the code chart for the General Punctuation block
(<http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2000.pdf>) mentions use in pairs. Given
the example in the prose, it is clear that the pairs of em dashes are like
pairs of parentheses, pairs of quotation marks, or pairs of vertical lines: one
punctuation mark introduces a phrase or a quotation or the notation of a value,
and the second punctuation mark terminates said phrase or quotation or notation
of a value. More importantly, the foregoing is clear given centuries of
typographic tradition in daily practice.

I am curious about the origin of the idea that a small space should appear by
default between consecutive em dashes. As far as I know, there should be no
space. I find that, in print, em dashes typically have zero bearings or tiny
bearings on both sides. It would be typical, therefore, to see an em dash
touching a preceding lowercase letter “e” or “o”. As for DejaVu fonts,
having zero bearings on both sides of the em dash seems like a reasonable
compromise because the bearings on letters and figures provide a small space in
addition to or even despite the bearings of the em dash.


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