Dash it!

[Jo Zebedee]

Seems a while since we've had an eight piece thread on em-dashes. Place is going to the dogs. Anyway, I have this:


He spotted her, raised his hand in greeting, almost tripped off the escalator, and she found herself laughing at the face he pulled: self-mocking, look-at-me, I’m-an-eejit.





the last line is where I'm a wondering. Really, I think it should be look-at-me-I'm-an-eejit, but I think the comma is needed because I take a pause there.


Any thoughts? If I could have a definitive answer by, you know, Christmas, it'd be good. (But unlikely, I grant. )

 

[Juliana]

I would prefer it all together, without the comma. It feels a bit odd split up with the comma. (Disclaimer: with no grammatical basis at all, just reader preference!)

 

[Hex]

Right, well I'll open the bidding and say I think it needs a dash (or possibly hyphen or n-dash or whatever we call them) because it's all part of the same thought, whether you pause to breathe or not.

EDIT: curses. Juliana types faster than me (and is probably holding fewer socks as she types). So I'm not opening the bidding. I stand by the dash thing though.

EDIT again: I think it's a hyphen, not an n(en?)-dash -- just to draw the conversation off at a tangent

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm agreeing with Hex on the hyphen tangent and the rest of her post including the bit about Juliana getting there.

My additional comment is that I think the comma ruins it a little and prevents it tumbling out.

 

[Ursa major]

Have you thought about dropping the dashes, if you're worried abut them, and adding quotations marks? For instance:

He spotted her, raised his hand in greeting and almost tripped off the escalator. She found herself laughing at the face he pulled: self-mocking, as if saying, "Look at me, I’m an eejit."​

Okay, I've done some other stuff, but you know I can't help myself.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ursa! I had agreement up to that. yes, I did think of it (for once) but this is one of my Ulster stories and I thought the hyphens (which they are indeed, Hex) gave a sense of speed that the narrative didn't?

 

[j d worthington]

Seems a while since we've had an eight piece thread on em-dashes. Place is going to the dogs.

I'm going to be a bit of a nit-picker here: what you give as an example below, isn't an em-dash, nor even an en-dash, but rather a hyphen. An em-dash would be: "If something seems to be true, and you have a gut feeling it is true -- however fantastic that thing may be -- then it is at least worth investigating the truth of said thing."


As for your example itself:

He spotted her, raised his hand in greeting, almost tripped off the escalator, and she found herself laughing at the face he pulled: self-mocking, look-at-me, I’m-an-eejit.

I would agree with those who think this should all be linked. Try saying it aloud; if you automatically pause -- as in a caesura or beat before going on -- then a comma would be appropriate. If, on the other hand, as such a phrase as this seems to be, is all one descriptive "breath", as it were, then it should be "look-at-me-I'm-an-eejit" (though I will admit I prefer the spelling, "idjit"; the long e here seems, to my American ear, artificial, as "idjit" is closer to the usual pronunciation of "idiot" rather than "eediot"....

 

[JonH]

As far as I know there's no need to hyphenate em dash. I didn't like the placing of the colon. I'm okay with the hyphenation in self-mocking. I think I would have used em dashes throughout the last thought if you wanted paused emphasis between every word.

...and she found herself laughing at the face he pulled, self-mocking: look—at—me—I’m—an—eejit.

If you just want to concatenate the words, use hyphens.

...and she found herself laughing at the face he pulled, self-mocking: look-at-me-I’m-an-eejit.

Because it ends the sentence, I don't see a need to use either. Perhaps italics.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thanks, J.D., hyphen it is.

I can state the definitive (Ulster) spelling is eejit, though. But we say it with a long Eee at the start - maybe pronounciation differs - here it doesn't bear any resemblance to idiot. I actually wonder is it a derivative or is it Irish in origin. (Smithereens, for instance, is from the Gaelic.)

Alc? Any idea.*

JohH, thanks, I have been playing around with the colon, I think yours looks better. I shall shamelessly nick it.


* as a northern philistine I don't speak the lingo.

 

[Ursa major]

I'm not sure about the speed (although I've added words that probably don't need to be there**). I just saw the hyphens as turning phrases into adjectives.


** - So a shorter version:

He spotted her, raised his hand in greeting and almost tripped off the escalator. She found herself laughing at his "Look at me; I’m an eejit!" face.​

I suppose the presence, or otherwise, of 'self-mocking' depends on whether you think the phrase could be misinterpreted. For instance, I see eejit as a jokey word (unless it's obviously in an insult), but it might not have that feel about it where you are.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Yes, eejit is a fairly jokey term, so it's light when it's used. It's about the only word we all get away with calling each other...

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Ursa! I had agreement up to that. yes, I did think of it (for once) but this is one of my Ulster stories and I thought the hyphens (which they are indeed, Hex) gave a sense of speed that the narrative didn't?

I read it faster with the hyphens in which is why I hate the comma - it implied the speaker actually stopped .

Anything else it reads very differently.

 

[j d worthington]

I can state the definitive (Ulster) spelling is eejit, though. But we say it with a long Eee at the start - maybe pronounciation differs - here it doesn't bear any resemblance to idiot. I actually wonder is it a derivative or is it Irish in origin. (Smithereens, for instance, is from the Gaelic.)

Well, I don't find any official recognition of "eejit" (or "idjit", for that matter), so I would say they are dialectical variants, phonetically captured from common speech, rather than actual words of their own. As for "idiot", which is where the origin of each lies, it goes back to ancient Greek (in fact, the word which also gives us the modern "idiom"), in somewhat different form, and with a somewhat less pejorative sense: "private person, layman, person lacking skill or expertise" rather than someone who is a fool or outright senseless.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Well, I don't find any official recognition of "eejit" (or "idjit", for that matter), so I would say they are dialectical variants, phonetically captured from common speech, rather than actual words of their own. As for "idiot", which is where the origin of each lies, it goes back to ancient Greek (in fact, the word which also gives us the modern "idiom"), in somewhat different form, and with a somewhat less pejorative sense: "private person, layman, person lacking skill or expertise" rather than someone who is a fool or outright senseless.

Eejit is in the Oxford dictionary as the Irish/Scottish form of idiot:

eejit: definition of eejit in Oxford dictionary (British & World English)

It is used extensively in Ireland and almost exclusively in the place of idiot in Ulster. This book is set in Ulster, it uses Ulster idioms (within reason), from Ulster characters in close third - they would not use any other form of the word idiot or spell it any other way. I think it is derivative of idiot - there doesn't seem to be a Gaelic equivalent it may have been bastardised from.

I might be sounding pedantic, but the word ( and spelling) is quintessential to the region.

 

[JonH]

This book is set in Ulster, it uses Ulster idioms (within reason)

Not eejims?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Not eejims?

Heh. I'd give that a like if I could.

 

[Ursa major]

Wiktionary has also heard of eejit, as would, I expect, the majority of people on this side of the Irish Sea.

 

[alchemist]

Not eejims?

I LOLled, and I'm trying to get a child to sleep!

 

[alchemist]

Wiktionary has also heard of eejit, as would, I expect, the majority of people on this side of the Irish Sea.

We gave you Jedward to hammer home the meaning of the word.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Wiktionary has also heard of eejit, as would, I expect, the majority of people on this side of the Irish Sea.

From this side of various oceans and continents: I have read 'eejit' in other fiction, so I know what it means and I recognise it as Irish. I have never heard the word used here in Australia, but when I first read it I had no trouble understanding it from the context and from its similarity to the word 'idiot'.