• marcos@lemmy.world
    7·
    3 days ago

    Just use commas, my friend

    vs.

    Just use commas – my friend

    It doesn’t work very well.

    • TomasEkeli@programming.dev
      52·
      3 days 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
        61·
        3 days 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
          23·
          2 days 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.netEnglish
            51·
            2 days 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
                  22·
                  2 days ago

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

                  • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.netEnglish
                    3·
                    2 days 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
            3·
            2 days 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.