Hmm, according to the Simon and Schuster's Guide to Writing (Canadian Edition), there should be neither a space before nor a space after the em-dash. In lyrics, technically there shouldn't be spaces before or after hyphens either, but there they are in the music all the time, so I guess we can take that with a grain of salt. I can tell, jef, that you feel particularly strongly about this, because you used capitals. ;-)
Attaching the em-dash to the preceding syllable (with or without the non-breaking space) makes the syllable sit somewhat to the left. Should I nudge it so that it is centred under the note as if it DIDN'T have the em-dash attached to it? I have trouble trusting my eye in these unusual circumstances. Thanks to John, Ryan, David and jef for the discussion. It has helped clarify things quite a bit for me (and Ryan, you don't have to apologise for being pedantic with ME, who carries a Sharpie with me wherever I go to alter the signs in grocery stores that read "10 items or less" to "10 items or fewer." Also, I spent an inordinate amount of time puzzling over whether to write "carry a Sharpie" to agree with "me" which is really "I", or "carries a Sharpie" and finally went with the one that is most common, though probably wrong.) Christopher On Sat Jul 21, at SaturdayJul 21 5:26 AM, SN jef chippewa wrote: > > the m-dash should ALWAYS be attached to the syllable it follows, it > is in essence a form of punctuation that belongs to that syllable. > there should be a (non-breaking) space between the syllable and the > m-dash, unless you are trying to make the text look american. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
