https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55292

Owen Genat <[email protected]> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |REOPENED
         Resolution|FIXED                       |---

--- Comment #65 from Owen Genat <[email protected]> ---
On reflection, I am wondering if the root of the problem is given in bug 62923:

> By default in Writer, when two hyphens (--) are set between two words 
> they are converted into an em dash.

This seems somewhat controversial / dubious practice (especially given the
change proposed here) and yet the comments in the code from the related commits
in that bug indicate:

editeng/source/misc/svxacorr.cxx    
> // Replace [A-z0-9]--[A-z0-9] double dash with "emDash" or "enDash"
> // [0-9]--[0-9] double dash always replaced with "enDash"
> // Finnish and Hungarian use enDash instead of emDash.

source/text/shared/01/06040100.xhp
> If the hyphens are there between digits or the text has the Hungarian 
> or Finnish language attribute, then two hyphens in the sequence A--B 
> are replaced by an en-dash instead of an em-dash.<comment>i71908</comment>

Why? I would say many more countries than just Finland and Hungary are affected
by this. As I pointed out in comment 49: "Some publishers, universities, and
wikis use "--" for em-dash", but there is a specific reason why. Here are a
couple of prominent examples:

APA 6th Ed., §4.13 Hyphenation:

> If an em dash is not available on your keyboard, use two hyphens with 
> no space before or after. [...] if the en dash is not available on 
> your keyboard, [use] a single hyphen.

Chicago Manual of Style 16th Ed., §2.13 Dashes:

> For an em dash [...] type two hyphens (leave no space on either side). 
> [...] authors can generally avoid the en dash and use hyphens instead.

In other words, those guides that do indicate this practice tend to use a
SINGLE hyphen for en dash. We therefore have either:

a--b = em dash
a-b  = en dash

...or:

a---b = em dash
a--b  = en dash

In both cases, there are distinct differences and there is NEVER a suggestion
of using a--b to imply BOTH em dash and en dash, which is what we seem to have
at present. It is better to have completely different patterns for replacement
of different characters. I would also like to mention that these types of
wildcard replacement entries should be at user discretion i.e., not included by
default as this makes it easier for locale-specific customisations to be made
as necessary.

Given what I am seeing and the questions I have posed in this comment I am
setting the status to REOPENED.

-- 
You are receiving this mail because:
You are the assignee for the bug.
_______________________________________________
Libreoffice-bugs mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-bugs

Reply via email to