Re: U+2015 HORIZONTAL DASH, 2-em and 3-em dashes in the Chicago Manual of Style

From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Tue Jan 26 2010 - 18:10:23 CST

  • Next message: Karl Pentzlin: "Re: Medievalist ligature character in the PUA"

    On 01/26/2010 04:13 PM, Michael Everson wrote:
    > On 26 Jan 2010, at 20:31, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:
    >
    >> Maybe the lack of 2-em and 3-em dashes as characters in Unicode is
    >> based on the assumption that successive em dashes are joining, either
    >> because they have been so designed by the font designer (i.e. the
    >> advance width is exactly the same as the dash width), or because
    >> automatic kerning is specified and used. But these assumptions often
    >> fail.
    >
    > I have no objection to adding a two-em dash and a three-em dash to the UCS.

    I always assumed that U+2015 HORIZONTAL BAR was supposed to be exactly
    this, the 3em dash (I didn't actually consider the possibility of a 2em
    dash). I think I made it 3 ems long in my Marin font. If it isn't (and
    almost no fonts make it this long), then given the typographic tradition
    I agree that UCS certainly should have 2em and 3em dashes.

    ~mark



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jan 26 2010 - 18:13:04 CST