punctuation

17:02 Dec 13, 2011 

English also uses single dashes, which function rather like colons, and Spanish does not do this. When translating from English into Spanish, it is usually best to replace this sort of dash with a colon.
Another difference is that in Spanish the second (closing) dash can be and often is followed by another punctuation mark: comma, semicolon, colon or full point. This is not done in English, and when translating from Spanish into English one often has to adjust the punctuation accordingly. Sometimes the second dash can simply be omitted in English, but often it is better to replace the Spanish pair of dashes with parentheses ().

17:02 Dec 13, 2011 

Most of the points have already been made. Here is how I see it:

1. Whether these should be EN-dashes or EM-dashes in English, and whether they should be spaced (separated by spaces from the preceding and following characters) or not are matters of house style. British academic style in the humanities, which was drummed into me at an early age, is spaced EM-dashes, and that's what I use, but all combinations are found. Broadly speaking, as Martin has said, American style is unspaced (see Chicago) and British is spaced, but there are many exceptions (such as OUP), and there is no general preference for EN-dashes in British style. Follow the client's style or ask if in doubt.

2. Much more important, in my opinion, is the difference between Spanish and English use of the dash. In Spanish, dashes are used like parentheses, in pairs, and they adjoin the text between them and are separated from the surrounding text. In other words, the first one has a space before but not after and the second one has a space after but not before. English also uses pairs of dashes like parentheses but never spaces them like this: each one either has a space both before and after or no space at all.

16:27 Dec 13, 2011 

Martin is correct about the difference in British and American usage. I always ask my clients where the article we're working on will be published so that I can apply British or American spelling and punctuation uniformly throughout the document. There's one further twist to this issue: web designers overwhelmingly prefer to use a hyphen or en dash with spaces, as that combination is easier to read on screen. Asking the author whether the article will be publishing in an American or European journal is probably most diplomatic way out of your problem. If the document is for an EU audience, I go with British style rules.

14:55 Dec 13, 2011 

The rules and conventions of use are not the same, and there are even even discrepancies within each language. In any case, I would/will not accept a non-native speaker client telling me how to punctuate my English thank you very much. "Zapatero a tus zapatos."

14:54 Dec 13, 2011 

This is an editorial issue which will depend on prevailing practice in the target publication.

In general, UK practice for dashes used parenthetically is to use en dashes – like this – surrounded by spaces, whereas US practice is to use em dashes—like this—without spaces.

Your writer is reflecting a different national practice; you need to point out to her that conventions are different in different languages. Many people are aware of things like decimal points vs. commas, but overlook others such as this.

Also bear in mind many people not exposed to printing/editorial terminology aren't aware of the distinction between hyphens and dashes, let alone between en-dashes and em-dashes. Jenni has provided a useful link to the wikipedia article (see especially the section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash ).

14:54 Dec 13, 2011 

I can see that you have a solid argument, that you are clearly right, but, euch, I don't like the sight of those dashes without spaces. It's having a similar effect on me as Brentford Nylons brushed nylon sheets used to have in the 1960s (someone mentioned them this weekend and I'm still wincing!). I'm clinging to the fact that in the UK we can claim, to a certain extent, that "anything goes" and that this goes against the style grain for me!! But if the client wants it without spaces, the client will get it without spaces anyway!