• marcos@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 day ago

    Just use commas, my friend

    vs.

    Just use commas – my friend

    It doesn’t work very well.

    • TomasEkeli@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      dashes cannot always replace commas, but commas can replace dashes.

      thus - commas are more powerful

      thus, commas are more powerful

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        24 hours ago

        Amusingly enough, one use case for em dashes is a pause where a comma would be too weak — refuting your assertion.

        Also, you used a hyphen.

        • TomasEkeli@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          16 hours ago

          not actually a hyphen, a minus (not that this matters to me in the slightest)

          I’m sorry, but “the pause is too weak” sounds squarely in the area of faffery to me.

          • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            13 hours ago

            hyphen and minus is the same punctuation symbol in different contexts, at least how most people, including you, signify the mathematical symbol.

            • hyphen: -
            • minus: -
            • en-dash: –
            • em-dash: —

            so… yeah. pretty clear it doesn’t matter to you since you speak authoritatively about it while being incorrect

                • TomasEkeli@programming.dev
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  5 hours ago

                  it’s like being an atheist and therefore not caring about the details of transsubstantiation. irrelevance.

                  • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    ·
                    4 hours ago

                    it’s interesting you would phrase your simile like that because it seems much more like being an atheist and then having a strong opinion that the miracle of transubstantiation happens in the hindgut, even though no theology calls for that.

          • Jax@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            14 hours ago

            It’s more along the lines of the comma is too weak for the pause. Likewise, there are places where the em dash is too strong for the pause.