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Oxford style Guide disses the EM — dash and tells you to only use EN dashes – not dashes either, unless you need to connect words in a word-connecting way... then again between dates and numbers you must use EN not EM... and then there are those who use ; everywhere when we all know the main use of ; is in ;-)

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Life's too short!

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Time is the fire in which we burn. —Delmore Schwartz

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What great quote. Thanks Alexander

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👍

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May 22, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

! , . ! ' - - , - - - . , . " ! "

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I agree, Nathan. Unfortunately it's not possible afaik to reverse engineer it, so I have no idea what you said 😂

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May 27, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

😅 I can't remember now either, though I'm sure it was extremely complimentary!

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😂

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So interesting, Terry - thank you! The punctuation tool you've linked to is absolutely brilliant. This is such a great way to view writing through different lenses - I had never thought of observing punctuation as a tool for analysis. Fascinating stuff!

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Interesting, innit Rebecca. I guess it's like a punctuation version of a word cloud tool.

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Yes - I hadn't realised, but it's absolutely along similar lines to the word cloud idea!

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I have only just realised it myself!

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Lol 😂!

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May 21, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

I really enjoyed this post. And, for the record, I love a semicolon. The sexiest of all punctuation marks.

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Thanks, Bryan. I'm partial to en dashes myself.

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May 27, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

Oh, yes -

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😂

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I definitely over use the comma, so I've started editing and adding periods to break up longer sentences. On one of my posts, a reader ran my writing through a chat GPT bot to improve punctuation, and I thought the results were quite spectacular.

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I dislike long comma-strewn sentences because I lose the thread, so I think that's definitely a good ida!

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May 21, 2023·edited May 21, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

I think I overuse the em dash—I just love it:)

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Lol. I prefer the en dash, but we can still be friends 😁

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“Good fences make good neighbors”, Terry. I am well protected by the long em dash of a fence and consider the en to be a good neighboring option. We are all set to be friends!😉

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Wonderfully expressed, Anu 😁

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The em dash cannot—and I mean CANNOT—be overused.

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😂

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Ah-em! Aren’t we having some fun at the expense of-no less, an em!

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Very droll 😄

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May 22, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

Em-dash-lover here, too ;)

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😂 I'm thinking of starting an em dash club

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Nice to meet—you:)

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😂

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You’re talking about me, aren’t you, when you say I use semi-colons too much? Dammit, I knew it!

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Lol 😂

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May 21, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

As a teacher ( in California) the best part of this post was the footnote. You go, Terry!!!!!

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Thanks, Sharron. That footnote explains why I've never been offered a knighthood

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May 27, 2023Liked by Terry Freedman

Worth it, in my opinion! Someone's got to tell the truth around here.

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eggzactly

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What an odd stand to take, for the Education folks. (Who are almost always off, to my mind. Not all--there are gems. But too many otherwise. Says someone who's gone through an Ed program.)

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The people in the DfE are not necessarily education experts

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