Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/dash drafting

(removed, see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/dash_drafting/discussion#What do we agree upon? Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: 1–3 are the same thing, as are 4 & 6, and should probably be worded that way. — kwami (talk)

( facilitator note: keeping the items as subdivided as possible will make it much easier to determine consensus. Lumping items risks the need for dissecting out for who wants what. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:06, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm replacing {{xt}} with code tags for the HTML entity; hope you don't mind. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 12:35, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Excellent idea; we should do the same throughout the MOS so it’s clear what′s coded and what’s rendered. JeffConrad (talk) 19:57, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Can have be replaced with can have, so that it's clear we're not putting a blanket ban to any other way of expressing those concepts? ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 15:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think that would get the point across. I wouldn't understand it to mean that, but then I don't understand the current wording to be a ban. — kwami (talk) 18:40, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, I'd interpret it the same way as you; but if I understand correctly, PMA voted “Disagree” on some points where he wouldn't mind allowing dashes but is opposed to banning hyphens, so it seems that that other interpretation is not implausible. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 17:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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).

• Agree. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Maybe add example of nested range (from x–y to z). Also, does this cover geographic ranges, or is that supposed to be the next point? — kwami (talk)
• I can support this, and it's well-written, but there are other positions I could support; for instance, dashes are less common outside the main text of articles. [Who wrote that? Noetica^Tea? 10:10, 29 May 2011 (UTC)] That's me. Count this as "agree". - Dank (push to talk) 13:13, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Almost all guides and the majority of published sources use a dash in this case. JeffConrad (talk) 19:28, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. 13:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC) [Who wrote that? Noetica^Tea? 10:10, 29 May 2011 (UTC)]Otr500 voted twice, probably an honest mistake. Art LaPella (talk) 20:55, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Otr500 (talk) 13:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Tony (talk) 04:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. This point is simple enough, and has very wide acceptance. Noetica^Tea? 10:10, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Dicklyon (talk) 08:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Kotniski (talk) 10:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. —
  Talk • Contribs) • 10:47pm • 12:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Binksternet (talk) 13:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:48, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Orlady (talk) 18:13, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. — kwami (talk) 18:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree, universally preferred usage in this case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. —WFC— 19:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Deor (talk) 13:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:15, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. One of the few points on which a usage is generally preferred. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:12, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. --JN466 23:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Consistently used in RS. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree.
  books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree Courcelles 18:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Odysseus1479 (talk) 07:59, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Ozob (talk) 12:07, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Moray An Par (talk) 12:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. --The Silent Blues 12:08, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Uploadvirus (talk)
• Agree.—Finell 01:09, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. —  
  TALK 11:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree in part. Hyphens in ranges that are part of a URL or Template:Bibleverse link should not be changed to endashes which cause the link to fail when opening the link in a separate browser window using drag 'n drop. see main talk page archive —Telpardec (talk) 09:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(NB: Please comment agree/disagree in each section below)

• 2a. To stand for to in a score or vote (4–3 win, 5–4 decision).
  • Support ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree JeffConrad (talk) 08:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree (though would question whether it "stands for to" in this case; you wouldn't read it aloud as "to" as you would in the case of ranges.)Kotniski (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I sometimes might read it as “four-to-three win”, and I certainly would say “five-to-four decision” (and I’ll probably have many opportunites to continue doing so). For what it’s worth, Chicago endorse this usage. JeffConrad (talk) 08:06, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:09, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree — kwami (talk) 18:18, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree —WFC— 19:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree – SJ + 06:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:48, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Less than useful. If a dash between two numbers means a range, it is not useful to have it also mean a score; 3–5 should not be ambiguous. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Well, I can't imagine a context where both interpretations are possible, so I don't think that's a big deal. I mean, we don't recommend using Quicksilver rather than Mercury at the beginning of a sentence because the latter might be taken to refer to a planet rather than to a metal, do we. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 17:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:51, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Ozob (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Noetica^Tea? 05:31, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Consistent with CMoS 16th Ed. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —  
    TALK 11:46, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. —Telpardec (talk) 08:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 2b. To otherwise stand for to (male–female ratio).
  • Support ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree JeffConrad (talk) 08:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral (again not sure it really "stands for to").Kotniski (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —
    Talk • Contribs) • 10:47pm • 12:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:09, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, as in Paris–Bourges road race. Binksternet (talk) 14:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree — kwami (talk) 18:18, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strongly oppose No actual usage outside some obscure style guide has been given; most style guides do not recommend this. Looking at a random sample of actual English suggests strongly that this is also the wrong example; the old-fashioned (male:female) and modern (male/female) symbols for a ratio are both more common than dashes; hyphens are more common than all three put together. If those who support this want permission to do this, I am still willing to accord it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:22, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree but needs a better example. As PMAnderson points out, the "ratio" expression invites the more specific punctuations often used with ratios. The en dash is sometimes found in male–female ratio, like in this Psych paper, but it's easier to find en dash in "male–female differences"—but there it doesn't mean "to". An example such as "Washington–Boston flight" would be good; but also note that "Washington–Boston corridor" needs an en dash, and there the relationship is not from "from X to Y" but "between X and Y", so a refactoring into fewer "stands for" distinctions, expressing instead as symmetric or parallel or equal relationships, might be an improvement. Dicklyon (talk) 02:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I guess I take credit once again . . . The evil obscure style guide actually used male–female differences, but as Dick notes, this sense is not to. In rewording, I was trying to see if we found a difference between male–female relations (a sense of between or and) and male–female ratio (shorthand for “male-to-female ratio”); I thought changing only the word modified would be the clearest way to approach this. Apparently not, at least with this example.

    There are at least as many problems with the solidus as with the en dash, especially in a context that is not obviously numerical. If we are to believe CMOS, OSM, and MLA, the primary connotation is of alternatives (e.g., he/she, max/min). Perhaps upon seeing ratio, the reader will quickly recognize the intended meaning, but some backtracking is arguably involved. APA are more inclined to interpret the solidus as indicating a ratio; interestingly, they say “for simple comparisons. Use a hyphen or a short dash (en dash) instead. test–retest reliability not test/retest reliability”, as if they prefer the en dash to the solidus for indicating alternatives.

    Whatever we do, I would try to avoid getting too abstract, less reader protest that “pie are round”. JeffConrad (talk) 07:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree.. This proposal is worded too broadly. A "to do list" should not be a "- do list." Pine _(GreenPine) ^t 22:18, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Facepalm
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not being sarcastic. I'm trying to follow exactly what is meant here. The example is reasonable, but the general statement of the proposal, "To otherwise stand for to," is broad and vague. I'd certainly reconsider my views if the proposal was worded more specifically. I can't read the drafter's mind! Pine _(GreenPine) ^t 07:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Would changing “to stand for” to something like “in the sense of” not address much of your objection? JeffConrad (talk) 07:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the problem being raised here is not with "stand for" specifically, but with the lack of context. We need to be more specific than just "otherwise" (something along the lines of "in compound modifiers when the sense is to"). The same applies to 2c and 2d and several of the other points. We know we're talking about compound modifiers, but we've forgotten to say it.--Kotniski (talk) 09:21, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd accept "To stand for to in a ratio," but a slash or a colon would be preferable. This would change my vote from "disagree" to something like "very reluctantly tolerate," which would largely go along with Pmanderson's views. Pine _(GreenPine) ^t 21:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I think we've lost the context here. §1–3 all cover areas of hyphenation where typeset text uses a "long hyphen". If a hyphen would not be acceptable for manuscript or a manual typewriter, then an en dash would not be acceptable when typeset. And yes, §2–3 are generally for attributive (modifier) use. However, the conjoined modifier sometimes occurs on its own. For example, we'd say a Japanese–English dictionary, but also when describing dictionaries, Japanese–English. This is because in manuscript it would be hyphenated either way.

    A virgule would be used for alternatives, and so I don't think would be proper here. A colon would be, but we can cover that under the section on colons. But again, in that case it wouldn't have been hyphenated to begin with. — kwami (talk) 19:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Regarding slashes, quoting from the Wikipedia article "slash": "The solidus is used in the display of ratios and fractions, as in constructing a fraction using superscript and subscript, e.g. “¹²³⁄₄₅₆”; the slash is used for essentially any other textual purpose." Pine _(GreenPine) ^t 08:12, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The context is provided by the fact that what we're discussing here would be within the "how to use hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes" section, though. Isn't it? I don't think that anyone is proposing making these stand alone points to be used generally. Nobody should be running around changing all instances of "vs" to hyphens or dashes either.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:10, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I think I am following the context, but what I'd like to see is a more narrowly worded proposal than "To otherwise stand for to." Pine _(GreenPine) ^t

  • Agree --JN466 23:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:52, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Generally for more or less the same reason as Pine, and specifically because I think a colon should be used for ratios—where space doesn't permit e.g. “the ratio of males to females”. —Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, sort of. I understand what's trying to be expressed here, but the example given is poor. I wouldn't write, "Team X outscored team Y by a 2–1 ratio." I'd either write "2-to-1" or "2:1". Ozob (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Noetica^Tea? 05:31, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Consistent with CMoS 16th ed. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. It is a reasonable choice, and consistency within Wikipedia is desirable; that is the purpose of a publication having its own style manual.—Finell 01:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Male:Female or male/female, but not male–female. —Telpardec (talk) 08:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    We pretty much agreed that for ratios like that, the colon or slash is a good alternative. In his new draft, Noetica proposes the modified example "male–female height ratio", where the colon or slash would not work, since it's a ratio of heights, not counts of males to females; whether we want to characterize this use as an example of standing for "to" remains a good question. Anyway, I think it has been addressed in the new proposal; see if you agree. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    FWIW, our article proton-to-electron mass ratio is titled thusly. (CODATA and NIST use proton-electron mass ratio, but AFAICT they don't distinguish between hyphens and en dashes at all.) ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    The -to- is OK. Some sources do use the en dash, like this book (which also puts a spurious hyphen in "proton–electron mass-ratio"!), and this one. Others use the slash, when they recognize that hyphen is not quite right; but here slash seems not quite right too, since it's not a ratio of protons/electrons, but of masses. Dicklyon (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 2c. To stand for versus (Lincoln–Douglas debate).
  • Support ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree JeffConrad (talk) 08:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but more because it helps distinguish from a double-barrelled name.--Kotniski (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:09, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree — kwami (talk) 18:18, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree – SJ + 06:20, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:48, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:14, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Not uniform usage; not particularly useful. The dash for this is occasional piece of cover art; as here, it is normal to hyphenate in running text. All these examples are subfunctional exceptions to the normal rule of English: dashes are punctuation; hyphens make compounds. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:54, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Ozob (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bad Example in my opinion. I think that the objection above may be related to the fact that "Lincoln Douglas debate" is a debating style as well as an actual event. To be honest, I'm not sure what the right usage is for the style of debating, but I do agree that the example is right if it's referring to the debates that occurred between Lincoln and Douglas. There's got to be some other famous debate that could be used an example instead? AgnosticAphid talk 18:32, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I thought about this more, and it seems to me like according to the style guide here, "Lincoln [en dash] Douglas debate" is the right term for the debating style (as distinct from the actual 1800s debate event), because it's sort of like an implied disjunctive "and" when you're talking about the debating style. (I can't imagine anyone saying they had a "Lincoln versus Douglas debate tournament" this weekend; you'd say just "Lincoln Douglas debate tournament.") But this is a bad example precisely because it mixes up the justifications behind the use of en dashes with these two different meanings of the term. That's why I think some other "versus" example should be used instead, like a historic debate that isn't also the name of a debating style. AgnosticAphid talk 04:41, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Apparently the example was in the spirit of the

    Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858, more than the style, which inherits from that; a better example might be found, like the Nixon–Kennedy debates. Dicklyon (talk) 15:03, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply

    ]

  • Weak Disagree, atypical use of the en dash. However, I see the point for typographically distinguishing from a hyphen where a reader might reasonably infer a hyphenated name otherwise. See also my comment for 2d below. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. A debate is an expression between divided views. Lincoln/Douglas. —Telpardec (talk) 08:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    It's easy to find sources with space, hyphen, or en dash; but none with slash. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. This usage has very wide acceptance, and fits well with the other usages currently in WP:MOS and now endorsed for retention by this poll. We ought to consider how these usages fit together for a consistent body of guidelines, not just what we make of each in isolation. Noetica^Tea? 09:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Sorry I forgot to vote on this one earlier, but my position was apparent in the comments I made. Dicklyon (talk) 13:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 2d. To stand for between (male–female relations, French–German border).
  • Support ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:06, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree JeffConrad (talk) 08:10, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. But here I have even stronger doubts as to whether we can say it "stands for" anything - you can't say "male between female relations" or "French between German border".Kotniski (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    But aren’t we really saying “relations between males and females”, which seems OK to me? JeffConrad (talk) 11:07, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That would certainly be another way of saying the same thing; but I still wouldn't say that the dash "stands for" between in the original (if anything, it stands for and). Kotniski (talk) 11:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I think 1–3 should all be subsumed under ranges / independent elements, with various examples. It's probably not possible to come up with a single preposition that would account for all possible examples of any one section, so IMO the emphasis should be on the examples, not on the description. — kwami (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I’m neutral on the merger, but agree that examples are essential however we choose to organize things. JeffConrad (talk) 23:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, the examples make things reasonably clear, but it's the "stand for" I object to - for me, if something stands for something, then it can be replaced by it (it doesn't just mean that it vaguely carries the same meaning). So the dash in ranges actually does stand for "to" or "thru" like we say (if you were reading it aloud, that's what you'd say); with scores and the like it's rather marginal (I suppose you could say "a four to three win", though in practice you wouldn't); and with these "between" examples it doesn't work at all. I think this is actually important, since AIUI it's examples like these that have been causing the recent controversy, and if the point of this exercise is to settle such controversial matters, then we need to get the resulting wording watertight (or at least, make it say unambiguously what it is we really mean), otherwise there will only be another round of argument over how to interpret it in particular cases.--Kotniski (talk) 08:27, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree that “stand for” is not always the best wording. In some cases “sense” (used by Chicago and Butcher) may be better; OSM simply states “Note Arab–American (of Arabs and Americans, en rule)”. Whatever we choose, we need to make clear what we mean, probably by wording and examples. Spacing in dates is a good example; Butcher (2006, 151) states that “en rules may be used between groups of numbers and words to avoid implying a closer relationship between the words or numbers next to the en rule than between each of these and the rest of its group” (ex. September–January but 18 September – 19 January), but she also indicates that in most other instances, the en rule is unspaced (presumably, this would include 18–19 September). She also cautions about mixing this usage with spaced en rules used as parenthetical dashes, and suggests considering using to in place of the dash to avoid ambiguity. If we decide that we agree, in whole or in part, we need to be clear on where we agree so that we don’t go through this again next week. JeffConrad (talk) 09:25, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:09, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:19, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree -- while I might support the use of the endash in these cases, it's definitely wrong to say "border between French and German".--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    No-one's saying we should say that. "Between" is only an attempt to cover the semantics, not a suggested rewording.

    We're voting on which areas we support en dashes, not on actual wording, correct? I agree that "between" is not the best word here. — kwami (talk) 17:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. Agree with Sarek that "between" shouldn't be in the final wording. — kwami (talk) 18:18, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    My bad, I guess. I used Chicago’s wording for lack of a better term; I’m all for a better one if we can find it. For the record, it’s a use Chicago do not endorse. JeffConrad (talk) 23:39, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Disagree, this does not appear to be commonly preferred usage in actual practice, and should not be mandated, at least not as obligatory. I am also not convinced the classification is defined by these section headings is linguistically appropriate and insightful. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:34, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with reservations. The "stands for between" is not literally correct, as some note; the Cambridge grammar puts it that "X–Y" can mean "between X and Y"; perhaps we could reword to clarify. This case is not presently in our MOS (except as implied in the number and date ranges), but I would support adding it if we can come up with a better wording. The example "French–German border" appears explicitly as such in at least one style guide, meaning the border between French and German territories, I presume; many adjective forms similarly have implied nouns, as in Spanish–American War, a war between Spanish and American political or military entities. I would also support Kwami's suggestion of coalescing these into a single more general description of the usage in joining pairs of parallel, equal, or interchangeable elements, instead of trying to enumerate the relations that might be implied. What exactly is the relation in love–hate relationship anyway? And? Between? Versus? To? something else? No matter; the point is that they are parallel concepts between which there is a relationship. Dicklyon (talk) 20:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    My bad, I guess. I used Chicago’s wording for lack of a better term; I’m all for a better one if we can find it. For the record, it’s a use Chicago specifically do not endorse. JeffConrad (talk) 23:39, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strongly oppose. Not American, as CMOS shows; an oddity in Commonwealth English.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:22, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Not American—Except, of course, for the American style guides which do recommend this. — kwami (talk) 04:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    All two of them; neither the actual style of the publisher concerned. One, of course, is Oxford University Press. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:38, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Certainly not an "oddity in Commonwealth English". Standard, in fact. And if we knew which two guides were referred to just above, we could add to the list of American guides. "American style" (a loose notion, to be used with caution) and what CMOS recommends are two different things – especially for the details we discuss on these pages. What CMOS actually does in its own text is a third thing; what University of Chicago Press does, as against its own style guide, is a fourth thing; and a fifth is what other American style guides recommend. Finally, all of these are to be distinguished from what selection English (not American) Wikipedia should make from current best-practice recommendations. It is also not accurate to portray Oxford (or Cambridge, or Routledge, or Penguin, and so on) as cleaving to something called "British" style, and importing it to America when they publish there. Especially, Penguin, Oxford, and Cambridge publish guides, grammars, or dictionaries that address American English, and they do a fine job of it. Noetica^Tea? 04:37, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• • Agree, except for changing the wording away from "stands for". Something like "to indicate commonality"? Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:19, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly disagree. Contrary to popular usage, requires interpretation to apply, and as the discussion here makes clear, it's going to be impossible to phrase in any way which doesn't serve as an excuse for reopening debate. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The border between France and Germany is not the same as the border between French and German; it is the same as the French border that's also a German border.Agree with the proviso I posted at 15:21, 8 June 2011 in section “Text” above (that the dash shouldn't be treated as the only possibility). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)20:27, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. — Bility (talk) 15:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with the first, disagree with the second. A French–German is a border between entities of "French" and of "German" which makes no damned sense. It's the France–Germany border, or the French-German border, but it is not the French–German border.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    In principle, it'd make sense to refer to the border between the French and German languages, which runs through part of Switzerland, along the border between France and Germany, and (IIRC) through a tiny bit of the easternmost part of Belgium; but I wouldn't be surprised if no-one actually used this phrase with this meaning. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 22:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Headbomb and A di M, you have both made that point more than once. Are you aware of the analyses in CGEL, at Chapter 19, 4.3.1 and Chapter 20, 8.2.2, dealing with X~Y Z constructions? (X and Y adjectives; Z a noun. I mean coordinative cases like "Swedish~Irish trade".) Those analyses contradict your own. Can you give us a citation to support yours? By the way, where punctuation is the topic (at 20:8.2.2) an en dash is used: X–Y Z. But a hyphen is used at the other location (19:4.3.1). CGEL basically accords with MOS-type usages, but it is not consistent. Noetica^Tea? 00:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Just out of curiosity, who changed the example from France–Germany border to French–German border and why? –CWenger (^ • @) 00:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    O, that was Kwami. (It's a foible of his to do such things. ☺) I don't approve: but in fact it is just as well he did. We especially needed opinions on adjective~adjective forms, for reasons that are obvious from the history of all this in the articles. Noetica^Tea? 00:34, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That's why I did it. We don't want to come back to this because we forgot to discuss it now. And it's the exact example used to illustrate dashes in one of our style guides. — kwami (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't remember reading Ch. 19, 4.3.1, and IIRC Ch. 20, 8.2.2 mentioned the long hyphen in French–German something as “also” possible, not as the only possibility. (I don't have access to CGEL now, and A Student's Introduction to English Grammar does not discuss those points.) Anyway, I agree that a monumental descriptive grammar based on a decade of research by a dozen linguists should be given more weight than the personal tastes of the authors of this or that style guide. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 15:17, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm just going to echo with Headbomb. He says exactly what I'm thinking. oknazevad (talk) 18:05, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Fine, Oknazevad. We can surely expect that your opinion will be responsive to evidence in major descriptive grammars, such as I have just referred to – and such as A di M might come back with. Noetica^Tea? 00:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree for both, though for different reasons. In male–female relations the dash means between, but in French–German border it really means "the French and German border", which is discussed in 3. Nageh (talk) 19:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, with similar reservations to Nageh over what the dash is supposed to “stand for”. —Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:21, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with this usage, though I too have reservations about using the word "between" to describe it. Ozob (talk) 12:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. The guideline is written to be concise rather than expansive. The sense "between" is of course implicated, but not as a plain substitute for the en dash. It should be reworded, since conciseness can be abused – as we have seen. The usage itself is very commonly endorsed in major style guides, and it is singled out for mention in the leading descriptive grammar of our time, CGEL (see abbreviations, at the head of this page), which calls the indicator (as a functional abstraction) "long hyphen", its marker being the en dash (I underline something about "between" and about adjectives, since these have been controversial points for us):

This is used instead of an ordinary syntactic hyphen with modifiers consisting of nouns or proper names where the semantic relation is "between X and Y" or "from X to Y":
[6]  a parent–teacher meeting  a French–English dictionary  the 1914–1918 war
It can be used with more than two components, as in the London–Paris–Bonn axis. It is also found with adjectives derived from proper names: French–German relations. There is potentially a semantic contrast between the two hyphens [that is, between en dash ("long hyphen") and hyphen] – compare, for example, the Llewelyn–Jones Company (a partnership) and the Llewelyn-Jones Company (with a single compound proper name).
(CGEL [2002], p. 1762, Chapter 20, 8.2.2, "Hard and long hyphens" subsection "The long hyphen")

For the record, CGEL is published in America by Cambridge (New York), and is a pan-anglophone grammar, with editing and contributions from several countries. The chapter just cited ("Punctuation") is written by an American, a Briton, and an Australian. Where punctuation is not the topic under examination, the text uses various conventions, not always consistently. Here is something else affecting our topic, addressing coordinative adjective+adjective compound adjectives (again I underline something that has been disputed in our discussions):

[30]  bitter-sweet  deaf-mute  shabby-genteel  Swedish-Irish  syntactic-semantic
The components here are of equal status. The last two illustrate highly productive patterns, both of which are predominantly used in attributive function: Swedish-Irish trade, a syntactic-semantic investigation. In general these can be glossed with coordinative and: "bitter and sweet"; "deaf and mute"; etc. In some, however, there is an understood "between" relation: "trade between Sweden and Ireland".
(CGEL, p. 1658, Chapter 19, 4.3.1, "Adjective-centred compound adjectives", subsection "Adjective + adjective")

[Added later; and re-signed:] Significantly, in its own usage CGEL firmly supports the en dash with the general sense "between". It overwhelmingly uses en dash in such phrases as subject–verb agreement (p. 499 et passim); I have found no "between" cases in which it uses a hyphen instead. Noetica^Tea? 01:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Disagree. I personally prefer CMoS usage, being American. Although I quote CMoS 16th Ed. here, it jibes with my personal preference as well. From ¶6.80 "En dashes with compound adjectives": "An abbreviated compound is treated as a single word, so a hyphen, not an en dash, is used in such phrases as 'US-Canadian relations' (Chicago's sense of the en dash does not extend to between)." Also see the table on page 379 of the 16th edition (¶7.85), under "proper nouns and adjectives relating to geography or nationality". Where the first term is a prefix or unless between is implied, CMoS prefers an open compound; the table shows hyphens, not en dashes, for the between usage. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• • Agree.—Finell 01:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Discombobulated. How does male–female mean male between female? —Telpardec (talk) 08:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    We've been through that confusion before: it doesn't. The "between" relation is expressed as "between X and Y", as the Cambridge guide to English usage puts it. Male–female can mean "between male and female" or "male versus female" or "male and female" or "male to female" (as in male–female transexual) or something like that. The en dash just makes it clear that it doesn't mean like in "a male-female person", indicating something like a "shemale" as Jeff put it. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 3a. To stand for and between independent elements that are proper names (Michelson–Morley experiment).
  • Agree It′s the only way to avoid confusion with “double-barreled names”. JeffConrad (talk) 08:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly agree. This is a case where it's more than just good style; it's actually informatively useful. Kotniski (talk) 10:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree — kwami (talk) 18:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, seems to be a reasonable distinction to make. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly disagree. Contrary to popular usage, does nothing to facilitate understanding, unless there's a sizable body out there who don't recognize that capitalization indicates proper names. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That's not the point. If there were someone called John Michelson-Morley, he would capitalize both parts of his surname too. By using a dash, we indicate to the discerning reader that we are talking about two people. (The non-discerning reader, though doubtless in the majority, doesn't matter; he won't be harmed either way.)--Kotniski (talk) 09:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    A wise reader would be well aware that the punctuation of the title does not provide an accurate count of the number of people named, see for example

    Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Wikipedia can't stop a "discerning" reader from using faulty logic and coming to erroneous conclusions, and enforcing such a convention in opposition to the punctuation used in RS wouldn't prevent that.--Noren (talk) 03:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply

    ]

  • Strong disagree Most RS use hyphens for such names. About 80% of RS use hyphen for the
    Oppenheimer-Phillips process, see here. Wikipedia should not use the personal opinions of editors to go against the usage in RS. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree per Kotniski. Jenks24 (talk) 08:51, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:24, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree per Kotniski. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. — Bility (talk) 15:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:52, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:57, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Rjwilmsi 11:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Ozob (talk) 12:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Daniel Case (talk) 19:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disgree Follow the applicable reliable sources on an individual basis, don't impose an idiosyncratic method for the sake of uniformity. We don't need yet another quirky thing for new users to get "wrong" when they start editing. --Noren (talk) 03:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree In this day of more and more people (including myself) having hyphenated surnames, I believe this is far and away the best way to avoid confusion. AgnosticAphid talk 18:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —  
    TALK 11:48, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Disagree for all of the same reasons others above have stated. —Telpardec (talk) 09:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Very common usage. Fits naturally with other usages already accepted, and now endorsed in this poll. Noetica^Tea? 09:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Pretty standard, useful distinction, widely recommended in guides. Dicklyon (talk) 14:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 3b. An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name (Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones), nor a hyphenated place name (Guinea-Bissau), nor with an element that lacks lexical independence (the prefix Sino- in Sino-Japanese trade).
  • Agree JeffConrad (talk) 08:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, uncontroversial I'd have thought. Kotniski (talk) 10:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —
    Talk • Contribs) • 10:47pm • 12:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Orlady (talk) 18:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial agree. The Guinea-Bissau example is not two independent elements, and so wouldn't be dashed regardless. I wonder if there might be complications to wording this exception in this way. — kwami (talk) 18:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Perhaps change the geographic example to "Wilkes-Barre"? Wilkes and Barré were two different people so their joint works would normally by dashed. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    Please see first how it's done in Pennsylvania. A priori reasoning is generally wrong; for example, it's not Wilkes–Barré either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I think that was the point of the suggested example; even though it derives from two person names, it's one place name, so it's hyphen, not en dash; just like in other double-barreled names that come from two. Dicklyon (talk) 18:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree --JN466 23:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. No need to change the spelling of names. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:51, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:26, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. That should be a no-brainer. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:52, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Rjwilmsi 11:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Ozob (talk) 12:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Daniel Case (talk) 19:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —  
    TALK 11:48, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. —Telpardec (talk) 09:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. A comment on "nor with an element that lacks lexical independence (the prefix Sino- in Sino-Japanese trade": this clashes with principle 5b, which calls for ex–prime minister, since "ex" lacks lexical independence. Now, principle 5b may simply count as an exception to the present principle; but the need to treat it as an exception complicates the guidelines. That is some further incremental evidence against 5b. Noetica^Tea? 09:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Pretty standard; without the different roles for hyphen and en dash, where would we be? Dicklyon (talk) 14:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 3c. To stand for and between other independent elements (diode–transistor logic).
  • Agree The only way to avoid confusion with compound adjectives. In most cases, the reader could probably sort it out, but the reader should not have to do so. JeffConrad (talk) 08:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, possibly with a rewording to say exactly what we mean; I'm persuaded by Jeff's argument.--Kotniski (talk) 10:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —
    Talk • Contribs) • 10:47pm • 12:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, as in space–time continuum. Binksternet (talk) 14:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    That can be interpreted as the continuum of

    space-time (or spacetime, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on, the phase of the moon, the price of tea in China, the sunspot number, the weather in London) as well as as the continuum of space and time, without much overall semantic difference between the two. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply

    ]

  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree — kwami (talk) 18:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: Also, I think sections 2 and 3 could be merged under the banner of separating independent elements. I don't see a significant distinction. –CWenger (^ • @) 23:52, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but this needs better explanation, contrasting it with when the hyphen would be used. I had to read it several times before I got it. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:21, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly disagree. Contrary to popular usage, requires interpretation to apply, has no simple, intuitively apparent meaning. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:28, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:51, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kind-of agree, though I'm not sure I'd ban hyphens altogether in this case. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:52, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 18:59, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Odysseus1479 (talk) 08:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Rjwilmsi 11:44, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but is this really a separate usage from 2d? Ozob (talk) 12:20, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Daniel Case (talk) 19:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —  
    TALK 11:48, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. —Telpardec (talk) 09:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Has very wide acceptance; fits rationally with the other principles endorsed here. Noetica^Tea? 09:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Yes, parallel items, as Cambridge puts it, as opposed to the hyphen's role in A-B where A modifies B. Dicklyon (talk) 14:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• : To separate items in a list—for example, in articles about music albums, en dashes are used

(please clarify acceptance of each section, and style below)

• 4a. Between track titles and durations (Kind of Blue#Track listing).
  • Neutral This approach is at least as good as any I can think of. I would like to see a link such as the one above, and perhaps links to other examples if there are such things. JeffConrad (talk) 08:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but it doesn't have to be the only method. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 15:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral I'd prefer colons, but could live with it this way. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:56, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial agree. Per Sarek, we shouldn't suggest dashes need to be used, only that they are a common and acceptable convention. — kwami (talk) 18:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral leaning oppose. Instruction creep. Of course such a list can be formatted like this, but I see no reason why such a parochial matter should be micromanaged by the MOS. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial agree per Dabomb87. —WFC— 19:48, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with reservations – it's just an application of the more general use as stylistic alternative to em dash; so I'd support merging it, making it just an example of that em dash alternative. Same goes for 4b. Dicklyon (talk) 20:08, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. It should be allowed, but this wording sounds like using a dash is the only option here. The same could just as well be achieved using parentheses in the case of track listings. Jafeluv (talk) 07:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but make sure the wording is changed to indicate that there are other ways of presenting this information. A dash can be used -- and if it is, it should be spaced -- but it doesn't have to be used. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strongly disagree. We have a simple alternative that uses only characters on the standard keyboard, and it should be uniformly used. Track Name (3:14) Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:33, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Reword so that it's allowed but not required. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but with the caveat that many above have about it not being the only method available. Jenks24 (talk) 08:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with using dashes this way, but I think that mentioning that explicitly in the MoS is instruction creep. It's just a sub-case of spaced en dashes in lieu of em dashes; also, colons, parentheses, etc. are also possible. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but with the reservation that this is just one of many options.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agreed as one possible option. Nageh (talk) 19:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 19:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but only as an optional usage. Ozob (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. I don't have strong objections, but I think it looks ugly more often than not. In general, I'd prefer to see a table, or commas and semicolons if prose. Definitely this usage should not be mandatory. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. This is just a fragment sentence, omitting verb. Editorial decision among other alternatives. —  
    TALK 11:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Disagree. Should be parentheses. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it. :) —Telpardec (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 4b. Between musicians and their instruments (Kind of Blue#Musicians).
  • Neutral I see this as an alternative to an unspaced em dash or a comma, and would permit either alternative. JeffConrad (talk) 08:23, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Per my comment at 4a. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 15:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral I'd prefer colons, but could live with it this way. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:56, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial agree, as above. — kwami (talk) 18:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral as per the above; instruction creep. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:51, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • As above. Dicklyon (talk) 20:08, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral per above. Jafeluv (talk) 07:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, with caveats, per 4a. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strongly disagree. We have a simple alternative that uses only characters on the standard keyboard, and it should be uniformly used. Miles Davis (trumpet, flugelhorn, organ) Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:35, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree per my comment in 4a. Jenks24 (talk) 08:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with using dashes this way, but I think that mentioning that explicitly in the MoS is instruction creep. It's just a sub-case of spaced en dashes in lieu of em dashes; also, colons, parentheses, etc. are also possible. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. But this is the same as above.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agreed as one possible option. Nageh (talk) 19:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed in that it is an acceptable option, but not mandatory Courcelles 19:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but again only as an optional usage. Ozob (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak disagree: As per my comments to 4a, but I see even less call for an alternative to the widely accepted standard for such lists in normal English prose—namely, commas and semicolons. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. This is just a fragment sentence, omitting verb. Editorial decision among other alternatives. —  
    TALK 11:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Disagree. Should be parentheses. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it. :) —Telpardec (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 4c: In this role, en dashes are always spaced.
  • Agree JeffConrad (talk)
  • Agree (I don't have any opinion about whether they're the best mark for this role). Kotniski (talk) 10:43, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Tony (talk) 15:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:56, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, as a variant of the em dash. — kwami (talk) 18:25, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —WFC— 19:48, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree (conditionally), corollary to the two above, but I'm not convinced those are needed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:50, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:29, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree since I do not believe the use of dashes in this way is suitable for the project. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. Nageh (talk) 19:55, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Courcelles 19:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Ozob (talk) 12:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong disagree. Spaced en dashes are a substitute for an em dash. To my American eyes, the em dash is much preferred over a spaced en dash in most places where either one is appropriate. In this case, because an em dash would not be appropriate, neither would be a spaced en dash. Heck, I don't like the mandatory spaced en dash in BLP lede birth/death dates (which, by the way, is at odds with CMoS ¶6.78–6.79). Proper use of typography is critical to readability. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Did you mean to post this under 6b? ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 20:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Nope; it's a comment on the "in this role, en dashes are always spaced" 4c. But yes, it's the same reasoning as my objection to 6b. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree.—Finell 01:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. If they are to used, then spaced. Alternatively, unspaced em-dash. Editorial decision. —  
    TALK 11:52, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Disagree. Should be parentheses. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it. :) —Telpardec (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 5a. In compounds whose elements themselves contain hyphens (the anti-conscription–pro-conscription debate).
  • Agree (somewhat reluctantly) This construction strikes me as ugly, but in some cases may be the best option. I would suggest that editors consider recasting when feasible. JeffConrad (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree (and also agree that this would usually be best recast).Kotniski (talk) 10:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, per JeffConrad, but surely we can find a better example. See my 5c comment.
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree on the punctuation itself, given that we note below that this will not always be good writing style. — kwami (talk) 18:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree —WFC— 19:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, with 'recasting' caveat. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree --JN466 23:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. Always awkward. It seems better style to me to advise recasting such phrases at any cost. – SJ + 06:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree per Kwami. Jenks24 (talk) 08:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should be allowed but not required. In the example given I'd use a dash, but I think Proto–Indo-European is much weirder than Proto-Indo-European. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • BTW, I'd also mention that pre–World War II is a typically American usage whereas Britons would use pre-World War II, if that's actually the case. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 17:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

      A di M, the particular guideline voted on here concerns cases with a hyphen in each of two components, not cases like Proto–Indo-European. This fits with the CMOS rule, which distinguishes these from cases with at least one space (just one space in one component will trigger an en dash; see the separate voting point below). Noetica^Tea? 03:57, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

      If so, I suggest that both is added before contain in the proposed wording for clarity. (And I'm not sure we need a rule for such a vanishingly rare occurrence.) ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 20:41, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. But this is the same as 2/3.
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree, but there is no need to address this separately, this is no different than 2 and 3 with the difference that the words have prefixes. Nageh (talk) 19:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but why would we be using such clunky phrasing? Courcelles 19:03, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, though we should recommend rephrasing. Ozob (talk) 12:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with the caveat that rephrasing is often a better alternative. Consistent with CMoS 16th Ed. ¶6.80. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. This usage principle (with the next one below) is as exclusively American as they get; and it is not universal in American anyway. It generally makes sense only on a background assumption that the en dash with sense "between" or "versus" is not allowed. That is why it belongs in CMOS, for example, but not in our MOS. In the current example the en dash is already justified on those other grounds. If we would write the radical–conservative debate, we should write the anti-conscription–pro-conscription debate, hyphens or no hyphens. I struggle to find plausible examples that work differently. "A Mon-Khmer–native-speaking woman"? "A long-established–anti-intellectualism problem", to distinguish from "A long-established anti-intellectualism problem"? [Added later: The en dash introduces a new possible reading, so the ambiguity is still as great: "A long-established versus or and anti-intellectualism problem".] "Little-known–anti-inflammatory contraindications", to distinguish from "Little-known anti-inflammatory contraindications"? This guideline was added late, and was not well considered or well drafted. It fits ill with the more settled guidelines. Noetica^Tea? 00:28, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    “hyphens or no hyphens”: The latter isn’t covered by this section. JeffConrad (talk) 02:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC) (Further adventures at WT:Manual of Style/dash drafting/discussion#In compounds whose elements contain hyphens—moved from poll page).[reply]

  • Agree.—Finell 01:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Totally worthless. In fonts like 10pt Courier New, the hyphen and endash are identical. Debates are divided views and should be slashed: the anti-conscription/pro-conscription debate —Telpardec (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Courier is a "fixed-pitch" (monospaced) font, essentially a typewriter emulation, so of course it makes no difference there. Dicklyon (talk) 03:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • It’s risky to base a judgment on any particular typeface, sometimes even if it’s proportionally spaced—there are some surprising variations in dashes (such as em dashes that apparently don’t form a continuous rule when placed together). JeffConrad (talk) 05:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree if we find a better example. But maybe we don't need this, since the example A–B debate needs an en dash whether A and B include hyphens or not. Dicklyon (talk) 14:04, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 5b. When prefixing an element containing a space (pre–World War II technologies, ex–prime minister).
  • Agree In most cases, I think the second example is as it should be. For the first example, recasting may be better in some circumstances. JeffConrad (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree (again, often better recast). Kotniski (talk) 10:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree – don't much like it, but this is a better example than "conscription"; see my comment to 5c. Tony (talk) 14:34, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree Should be recast in all cases, so that there are actually words on each side of the endash. (See above for "lacks lexical independence".) SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    What about cases where it cannot be recast? Say a conventionalized expression. — kwami (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    For example? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I think it's problematic to say something should be recast in all cases, when we cannot anticipate what those would all be. I just discovered that we're expected to repunctuate quotations in some cases, but we certainly can't change the words. Or there could be a catch phrase that has a set wording but not a set transcription. — kwami (talk) 17:56, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't think that 5b is about whether in this case compound is the best solution. The question is, if we decide to compound, than should we use a dash or a hyphen. Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 11:55, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree, as above. — kwami (talk) 18:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. While I am not suggesting that this practise be disallowed, the first example is a good demonstration of why this should not be encouraged. It is worth remembering that the Manual of Style is applied robotically; the worst case scenarios should be considered. —WFC— 19:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree – It's not "too prescriptive" and should not be applied robotically. Recall the heading of all this: "En dashes have several distinct roles". This is one of the roles, supported by almost all guides that talk about en dashes; it won't prevent people from seeking better alternatives, nor should it be allowed to justify "robotic" changes that make things awkward. Dicklyon (talk) 20:11, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. This one looks awkward and I don't think it's widely used. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral – don't mind the hyphen there. --JN466 23:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly disagree. Serves no useful function whatever, I've never seen an example of case where the hyphen would be confusing. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Slightly disagree. Again, always awkward, does not improve readability. – SJ + 06:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral, since RS are divided in this usage (very roughly 50% for dash and 50% for hyphen). This usage should be allowed, but not recommended. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree on the punctuation. Jenks24 (talk) 08:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should be allowed but not required. As for the examples given, “World War II” and “prime minister” are such widely recognized phrases that's is nearly impossible for readers to mis-parse the sequence, whether it uses a hyphen or a dash. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Pre-World War II is perfectly clear. While I've seen endashes used for every other thing, I've never seen this usage anywhere. If this somehow causes confusion, it is much better to recast (see former prime minister, before World War II...)
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    Agree that former prime minister is probably better, but recasting is more difficult in an adjectival context (e.g., post–Civil War era). Though the latter is not a construction one sees every day, I have seen it in print as well as in CMOS. If post-Civil War era is perfectly clear, we hardly need en dashes at all; it’s not that the reader can’t quickly sort it out, but that the reader should not need to do so. JeffConrad (talk) 22:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    IMO post-Civil War era is fine, since the capitalization clarifies. But people often want to capitalize the prefix, and Post-Civil War era is not so clear. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Disagree. I did not follow the discussion so I do no know how this suggestion came up, but using a dash to separate prefixes is very awkward, does not resemble the close connection to the word/compound whose meaning it changes, and does not follow most style guidelines. The style guideline I am used to suggests to use hyphens between the compound words if that is required for clarity (e.g., "ex-prime-minister") but does not mandate them. No dashes there. Nageh (talk) 17:54, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm fine with that myself, but I expect that people will object to hyphenating ex-prime-minister when we don't hyphenate prime minister. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree Courcelles 19:22, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree as an optional usage. Ozob (talk) 12:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree as mandatory if used in this fashion, but with the caveat that if at all possible, the usage should be rephrased to avoid the use of any dash at all (which would be consistent with CMoS 16th Ed. ¶6.80). // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree.—Finell 01:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. (If it ain't croaked, donut choke it. :) —Telpardec (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Like the preceding principle, this one is almost exclusively American. By itself, that is not an important objection; but these two principles originate and belong in a more limited context than English Wikipedia, which serves the whole anglophone world. It may fit well with CMOS conventions, for example. But our other guidelines will surely continue to differ from CMOS on en dashes (and dashes generally). Moreover, when we consider cases of this sort in isolation, we find that the structure is usually clear with the standard hyphen anyway: from the capitalisation (pre-World War II technologies), or from the inclusion of more hyphens when the prefixed form is not a proper name (post + blue period + paintings: post-blue-period paintings), or from the use of a stock title or familiar pattern that is read as a coherent block (several ex-prime ministers were present; two anti-potassium cyanide agents, noting that such chemical names do not take hyphens). In rare cases there may still be uncertainty of meaning: are non-sodium chloride salts chloride salts that are not sodium chloride, or simply salts that are not sodium chloride? Such cases are rare, and can be resolved by context or by rewording. In conclusion, if we do adopt this principle, we do so for extremely few cases, against expectations for many users of the language, and with juxtapositions that are, as we say in the trade, butt~ugly (post–French Baroque pre-Revolution art), and without a clear way to extend to more complex constructions by other, more established principles (quasi-pre–French Revolution taxes??; quasi–pre–French Revolution taxes??). Noetica^Tea? 05:04, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I somewhat take issue with the deprecation of CMOS and the purported consensus implied by we. I also suggest that “best practice” would accept (if not encourage) this usage. (Further adventures at WT:Manual of Style/dash drafting/discussion#When prefixing an element containing a space—moved from poll page). JeffConrad (talk) 09:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

    I wrote only this about CMOS: "It may fit well with CMOS conventions, for example. But our other guidelines will surely continue to differ from CMOS on en dashes (and dashes generally)." That is not a deprecation! And the use of we as a perfectly standard expressive device is not intended to conjure up or purport anything. You "suggest"; so do I, but using different wording. See elaboration on the discussion page; and thanks for moving things there. Noetica^Tea? 09:57, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree. This is the convention in English, and it is not our role to change it. InverseHypercube 07:53, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• 5c. Recasting the phrase (the conscription debate, technologies prior to World War II) may be better style than compounding.
  • Agree, but on a case-by-case basis. I would recast to the first example here but would probably prefer the en dash to the second example. I recognize that not every editor would make the same decisions; Strunk and White said it better than I ever could: in some cases, one must rely on “ear”, and no two ears are the same. JeffConrad (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Kotniski (talk) 10:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. —
    Talk • Contribs) • 10:47pm • 12:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 13:22, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree per JeffConrad, also reluctantly. I'd strengthen the advice to reword, and provide two options if it can't be reworded: the ungainly triple-bunger hyphenation, or the dash then space, which I think is anti-intuitive for readers unless they've become used to it, which most won't have (I have, but I did a double-take first time I saw it). Jeff, "ex–prime minister" can be reworded to "former prime-minister", can't it? Tony (talk) 14:29, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree We should word the guidance so that it is clear that recasting is the best option. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree — kwami (talk) 18:28, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:27, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree as a rule of thumb, with emphasis on the word "may". —WFC— 19:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral – don't mind pre-World War I --JN466 23:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree with the second example, and suspect that most of the other situations where this would apply are simply inferior phrasing to begin with, making the dash dispute a pretext. "The conscription debate" is just better writing, regardless of punctuation rules. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree per JeffConrad. – SJ + 06:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:57, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Jenks24 (talk) 08:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In some cases that's true, but “The old "you could rephrase it completely" nonsense is surely the last resort of the idiot prescriptivist caught in a position of having needlessly banned the best way to express a particular thought.” (
    Geoff Pullum[1]) As for the examples given, pre–World War II technologies looks OK to me, but technologies prior to World War II looks too stilted; what's wrong with technologies before World War II? Anyway, if 5a, 5b and 5c are to be all included in the MoS, it's better for 5a and 5b to use examples where the dash would be OK, and for 5c to use different examples where hyphens/dashes would look really awkward (ones involving a more obscure compound than World War II or prime minister), along with a suggested rewording. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree. With emphasis on "may".
    books} 17:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Agree as long as it is described as an alternative, only, and neither mandated nor recommended. Nageh (talk) 19:59, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, either way is fine, but this is smoother writing. Courcelles 19:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree very much. Ozob (talk) 12:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree cautiously so long as it is very carefully phrased to be clear that in many or even most situations rephrasing is preferable... but that editors should not create torturous language merely to avoid using a dash. It should make clear that clarity and ease of reading (good flow) trumps our caution against overuse, and that mechanical changes "just because the rule says so" won't be tolerated. // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 22:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree. Overuse of dashes leads to diagramatic writing. I would prefer a stronger admonition, such as "... is often preferable to compounding because ..."—Finell 01:55, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree, but paraphrasing is a talent very few editors manifest. —Telpardec (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree generally, if these principles are retained (which I think they should not be). Note also: it is not always possible or even desirable to recast; and "before" rather than "prior to", please! Noetica^Tea? 05:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree that rephrasing is sometimes good, but the construction is not bad enough to make this a strong suggestion. Dicklyon (talk) 14:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

6. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes (see below).

• Agree, but should this be merged to
  WP:EMDASH as a section on the use of dashes as punctuation? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:34, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree, and agree merger with em-dash may be best. — kwami (talk) 10:00, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• It's not often mentioned one way or the other in AmEng style guides, and I could live without it. I don't have any burning desire to enforce it one way or another. - Dank (push to talk) 14:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Neutral. Agree with Dank that this is very uncommon in AmE (and OUP don’t use it, either). I think it should not be used when en dashes indicating ranges are also spaced. JeffConrad (talk) 19:45, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Neutral; should be merged. Otr500 (talk) 13:05, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree, and it is there at
  WP:EMDASH. (See the subheading Spaced en dashes as an alternative to em dashes.) But this and all other organisational details can be fixed later, once larger issues have been resolved. Noetica^Tea? 10:10, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree – Pretty common and looks OK, at least a lot better than the spaced hyphen that users tend to enter for a dash. I would not agree to extending this to a "proscription" against spaced hyphens, or double hyphens, since it has become clear that requiring editors to enter dashes will not be acceptable to all; those who find the spaced hyphen heinous will just have to accept that it's their job to fix it; I accept that job happily. Dicklyon (talk) 08:26, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree; and yes, the spaced hyphen looks scrappy, especially on a monitor. Tony (talk) 08:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I’d say the spaced hyphen looks dreadful in any medium; perhaps more to the point is that I can find no formal support for it anywhere (it does frequently appear in online versions of newspapers, but that’s usually because the article editor has restricted himself to keyboard characters, and apparently has never learned the typewriter convention of two hyphens). I think it should always be acceptable to replace a spaced single hyphen with something more appropriate—subject to consistency with the rest of the article (and assuming it’s not intended as a minus), I’d be OK with an em dash (or even two hyphens), spaced or unspaced, or a spaced en dash. Stated more succinctly: the spaced hyphen should be proscribed. JeffConrad (talk) 23:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought AWB fixed this automatically, but I can't get it to do it now. AFAIK spaced hyphen is simply an approximation of spaced en dash. — kwami (talk) 18:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree. Kotniski (talk) 10:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. —
  Talk • Contribs) • 10:47pm • 12:47, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree Dabomb87 (talk) 14:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Binksternet (talk) 14:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree, including the bit about not using the spaced hyphen. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:01, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. I would think the spaced-hyphen proscription would be obvious, but maybe we should make it explicit. — kwami (talk) 18:30, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Neutral: I would rather we just always used unspaced em dashes for consistency but spaced en dashes are quite common and there is clear consensus for allowing them. –CWenger (^ • @) 21:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose; I do not understand the point of this--do we mean it is always acceptable to use this instead of a em dash? Otherwise, what do we mean by "stylistic alternative" If so, we aren't solving any problems but leaving this open to inconsistency. I can see the advantages of letting things be inconsistent, but that would be an argument against having this entire section and saying merely than hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes are mere stylistic alternatives and editors may use whatever they please and we no longer care about consistency in this respect.. DGG ( talk ) 04:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree; yes, spaced en-dashes and unspaced em-dashes must remain allowable alternatives of each other. I'd be strongly opposed to any attempt at imposing uniformity between these. No opinion on what section to place this in. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:21, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Jafeluv (talk) 07:40, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 12:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disagree. Each dash has its own role, allowing stylistic alternatives just makes for a mish-mash of styles. Powers ^T 13:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Disagree. Seems to create a loophole ripe for edit-warring ("I think it looks better even though other parts of the MOS recommend different") over all the same points and personal positions that this whole discussion is trying to quench. If this is designed to hit situations not otherwise addressed (vs non-specific exception to other existing MOS items), say so. If not, what is a situation where it is useful? DMacks (talk) 23:24, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I've found a large number of WP articles where spaced em dashes are used. Some people seem to be uncomfortable with not spacing them, and for those people a spaced en dash might be be appropriate. Some typographers prefer spaced en dashes over unspaced em dashes as less jarring, which is in general desired for punctuation. I find it hard to believe that anyone would edit war over this, but if they do, we can always take the line that whichever convention was used first has precedence, since there is no difference apart from the esthetic. — kwami (talk) 02:42, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree --JN466 23:25, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Disagree more or less per Powers. If we're going to allow "stylistic alternatives," this whole debate is beneath pointlessness and uselessness. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Disagree, and either way limit to a single section (either at
  WP:EMDASH or here but not both). – SJ + 06:11, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Agree – I hate em-dashes. En-dashes look a lot better and this usage of them is used in reliable sources etc. etc. McLerristarr | Mclay1 07:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Agree. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:16, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • BTW, I'm under the impression that the spaced en dash is more common in Britain whereas the unspaced em dash is more common in America; can anyone confirm this, and if so, is it worth to point that out in the MOS? ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 17:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]