Forum: Author Hangout

Well, live and learn. James Joyce used the em-dash for dialogue in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

An author explains why she uses the em-dash instead of quotes on Grammar Girl: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/writing/punctuation/em-dashes-arrows-to-the-heart

Great summary! Why she likes it in one line, below. For me it does exactly what she claims. Unfortunately, I don't want to be immersed in that fashion.

"The em-dashes slice through the barriers between interior and exterior, immersing you in that t thought/speech multitasking."

FWIW, the "Lincoln" author also wrote A Gentleman in Moscow, normal quotes, and Rules of Civility, with more em-dashes.

~ JBB

Long and short dashes (the em and en dashes) do appear in dialogues in Swedish-language writing, however.

Indeed. I have, on my shelf, Dröm och Verklighet, a book of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry published in 1974, and in some of the short stories, the em-dash is used instead of quotation marks.

It was one of my textbooks when I went to school there as an exchange student.

An example from Lyckan (Happiness) by Guy de Maupassant:

Kan man älska samm varelse i många år?
— Ja, påstod somliga.
— Nej, försäkrade andra.

Which, in English would be:

Can you love being together for many years?
"Yes", some claimed.
"No", others assured.

A second example:

Jag frågade henne:
— Ni är inte korsikanare?

Hon svarade:
— Nej, vi är från fastlandet, men vi har bott här i femtio år nu.

In English:

"You're not a Corsican?" I asked her.

"No," she answered, "we are from the mainland, but we have lived here for fifty years now."

Dang!

-- From Hell's Mouth Thou Tempts Me!

Now I imagine their heads exploding. My finger wobbles once more to the em/em-dash!

and there are no dialogue tags

There are dialogue tags. BB's initial example is:

---[that's an em-dash] I have learned a little about William Shakespeare, he said. Professor Abernathe calls him the greatest adventure to have never set sail on the seas.

See the "he said"? But then the dialogue continues without another em-dash.

I find it very confusing.

See the "he said"? But then the dialogue continues without another em-dash.

See above for the example from the Swedish textbook I cited. I found it interferes with reading because those little punctuation markers are very helpful to reading at speed.

See above for the example from the Swedish textbook I cited.

Ah, so the "I asked her" and "she answered" in the English version isn't in the Swedish version. I didn't know that.

Ah, so the "I asked her" and "she answered" in the English version isn't in the Swedish version. I didn't know that.

I was actually referring to the previous one with the 'yes' and 'no' answers where there is no distinction made between the quoted text and the speaker identificaiton. See HM's response on the one you cited.

See the "he said"?

You're right. I'm sure it must be possible to construct examples where it's ambiguous as to whether it's speech or reported speech.

Confusing indeed.

AJ

Confusing indeed.

I read the beginning of James Joyce's novel "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" to see how he used the em-dash for dialogue. I've never read him before (and never will).

As far as I'm concerned, he wrote gibberish that someone gave a fancy name (stream of consciousness) and called him a genius. So his using the em-dash for dialogue simply adds to that gibberish.