Very simple question about quotes and dashes

[Galacticdefender]

I use microsoft word for all of my writing, and I cam across this issue when a character is interrupted by another character.

Example:

Character 1: "I used to be an adventurer-"

Character 2: "Don't tell that stupid joke again!"

(Very dumb example, I know )

In this forum's default font, the quotes don't really open and close, they are just there. In Word, at the end of the dash, I cannot get closed quotes. They just open again. I know it seems minor, but it looks very strange. Does anyone have a solution to this?

 

[Hex]

I turn off curly quotes -- then they look the same whether you're opening or closing.

The alternative, I think, is to put a letter in ("...adventurer-a"), put in the quotes and then delete the letter.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Character 1: "I used to be an adventurer-"

You have a hyphen there instead of a dash. Word has a nasty habit of turning dashes into hyphens when you don't want it to, but that wouldn't prevent it from being fussy in a situation like yours and waiting for you to complete a (hypothetical) compound word before closing the quotes. Perhaps that's the problem.

 

[Glen]

If you're trying to suggest that Character 1 has been interrupted you could use an ellipsis:
"I used to be an adventurer..."

It's not a solution, but a workround.

PS is there a punchline to this joke, or is it purely hypothetical?

 

[Sapheron]

You can get around it by closing the quotes first and then going back and putting the dash in. Otherwise, as Teresa points out, Word has fun guessing what you mean and getting it wrong.

Alternatively, download OpenOffice. It doesn't do this. It generally lets you write things without Word's whole well meaning parent act messing things up.

EDIT: Glen, an ellipsis, at least to me, would suggest the character trailed off and left the sentence hanging intentionally, rather than being cut off.

 

[Glen]

I guess I read it as a pause, as in
"what's the secret of comedy...timing"
not
"what's the secret of comedy-timing"
:0)

 

[Ursa major]

Actually, in that last example, ordinary punctuation does the trick:

"What's the secret of comedy? Timing."

If one wants to really emphasise the pause, one could spell it out:

"What's the secret of comedy?" She paused. "Timing."

or add an ellipsis:

"What's the secret of comedy...? Timing."

 

[Erin99]

I use microsoft word for all of my writing, and I cam across this issue when a character is interrupted by another character.

Example:

Character 1: "I used to be an adventurer-"

Character 2: "Don't tell that stupid joke again!"

(Very dumb example, I know )

In this forum's default font, the quotes don't really open and close, they are just there. In Word, at the end of the dash, I cannot get closed quotes. They just open again. I know it seems minor, but it looks very strange. Does anyone have a solution to this?

I just write two quote marks after a dash, then delete the one I don't need. Try it - it works.

Or do what Hex suggests and use a letter, which is the other thing I do.

And in case Teresa's right and you DO have a hyphen instead of a dash, use two hyphens (--) when you want a dash in Word, which will then automatically convert to an em-dash. If you just write one hyphen surrounded by spaces, Word makes it into an en-dash.

Hyphen: -
En-dash: –
Em-dash: —

 

[Hex]

How about:

"What's the secret of comedy? ....Timing."

(should that be a capital 't' or not...?)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Capital, as the four dots indicate the sentence before has been closed, three dots means it's still open and that would be a small t. See, I do pay attention, occasionally...

 

[TheDustyZebra]

You can get around it by closing the quotes first and then going back and putting the dash in. Otherwise, as Teresa points out, Word has fun guessing what you mean and getting it wrong.

Alternatively, download OpenOffice. It doesn't do this. It generally lets you write things without Word's whole well meaning parent act messing things up.

My OpenOffice guesses, as well. I hadn't even realized that the quotes at the end of some cut-off sentences were not closing quotes, but opening ones again, until Boneman pointed it out to me in my WIP and told me the secret of adding a letter and then removing it.

And I'm quite sure that I have a lot of double-dashes that ought to be em-dashes, but I have no idea how to make them change if they don't do it automatically. I also have no idea what the difference is between a hyphen and an en-dash, as far as my keyboard or ability to choose one or the other goes.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If you have a Mac, you can make an em-dash by pressing the keys shift/alt/hyphen. After a little while, you can do it without thinking.

 

[Kreil]

I just write two quote marks after a dash, then delete the one I don't need. Try it - it works.

Thank you so much for this, it's been driving me crazy and this works perfectly!

 

[Erin99]

Glad to hear it, Kreil!

And I'm quite sure that I have a lot of double-dashes that ought to be em-dashes, but I have no idea how to make them change if they don't do it automatically.

I could explain, but I found someone who's already done it: http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2008/02/how-do-you-inse.html

And, to fix the double hyphens that ought to be em-dashes in your writing already, do a find-and-replace that swaps "--" for "—".

I also have no idea what the difference is between a hyphen and an en-dash, as far as my keyboard or ability to choose one or the other goes.

When I write, I use – shock horror – en-dashes for extra clauses within my sentence, because they're less noticeable on the page. Some authors prefer this version.

If something gets cut off, em-dashes are great for thi—

But the little hyphen is not used for interruptions in your sentences; it's used in compound modifier constructions that's not adverb-adjective combinations ("man-eating shark", for example), certain prefixes, etc. Everyone knows this one!






Of course, my partner does it somewhat differently—which is still acceptable, and even preferred by some publishers and authors—which uses the longer dashes with no spaces to separate off an extra parenthetical phrase, instead of the shorter dashes. I've written this way in the past, too, because sometimes a prose style seems to prefer it.

 

[Erin99]

Hey! That's weird. When I just replied (above) after the little crash we had, this thread didn't go to the top of the General Writing Discussion board, and the forum listed the post above mine as the last one in this thread!

Hopefully this will fix it...

 

[subtletylost]

If you're trying to suggest that Character 1 has been interrupted you could use an ellipsis:
"I used to be an adventurer..."

It's not a solution, but a workround.

PS is there a punchline to this joke, or is it purely hypothetical?

The punch line if you haven't already looked it up, well the whole joke is: "I used to be an adventurer until I took an arrow to the knee." It's a Skyrim joke.

 

[Brian G Turner]

This is a test post

 

[Boneman]

This is a test post

You passed!!!

 

[Brian G Turner]

The original thread was misbehaving for some reason - a number of people could not read the posts on page 2 - so I've now created a copy of the thread, which we are now using.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

So everything really has been stolen and replaced with exact replicas.

I bow down to you, Stephen Wright!