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Before we go too far with discussions as to what we personally like, what we don’t like, and declaring it’s my way or the highway based upon personal preferences, why not we first assemble a reference library of established manuals of style?

Greg, I can do this, but it’s gonna be l-o-o-o-ng? Are you sure you really want me to do so? JeffConrad (talk) 21:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your summary, below, Jeff. I’m sure I have an hour into what I added. Do you have it in you to provide the complete text of what the Chicago Manual of Style says regarding en dashes, or would that take more than an hour? BTW, (I’m apparently *new* to this because some acronyms make no sense to me), a quick Google search on “NHR” came up with Network Hardware Resale and Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning. Can you spell out some of these things or add a glossary? Greg L (talk) 01:14, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• The abbreviations are listed on Noetica’s page, transcluded at the top of this page.
• I think including everything CMOS has to say about en dashes would violate copyright, but I guess I’d be safe with the examples showing closed-up usage in ranges with spaced endpoints (under 6.78 in the 16th ed.). JeffConrad (talk) 01:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

• We’re having a scholarly discussion out of articlespace comparing and contrasting how different manuals of style handle en dashes. For the purposes of what we are doing, it is fair-use. The World Book Dictionary is thousands of pages; I quoted a thousandth of a single percent of it by quoting what it says on en dashes. Besides, I just now made this whole thread its own page, which is now transcluded to here on this page. When we are done with this discussion, we can blank the page so it isn’t discoverable by Google. What does CMOS say on the issue? Greg L (talk) 02:09, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I’ve got the following:

World Book Dictionary

From The World Book Dictionary, 1976, Pg. 28

1. In place of to between numbers or dates.
   
   You will find helpful information on pages 27–36.
   The years 1930–1936 were hard ones for the family.

   
   

2. Between proper names showing terminals of airplanes.
   
   The New York–Chicago flight was late.

I hope others here can cite the advise provided by other manuals of style. Then perhaps we can discuss what we think is correct, in error, in conflict, or is not addressed. After that much is done, I think our task at hand towards crafting our own MOS will be easier. Greg L (talk) 18:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Webster’s Style Manual

From Webster’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1993, Pg. 1335

En Dash

15. En dashes appear only in typeset material. The en dash is shorter than the em dash but slightly longer than the hyphen, and it is used in place of the hyphen in some situations. The most common use of the en dash is the equivalent to “(up) to and including” when used between numbers, dates, and other notations that indicate range.

1984–85
8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
GS 12–14
Monday–Friday
ages 10–15
levels D–G
35–40 years
pages 128–34

NOTE: The use of the en dash to replace the hyphen in such cases, although urged by most style manuals, is by no means universal. Writers and editors who wish to have en dashes set in their copy need to indicate on their manuscripts which hyphens should be set as en dashes, and this need to mark en dashes can obviously be an inconvenience and an invitation to errors. However, many writers and editors prefer to use en dashes because of the visual clarity they provide between numbers and because of the distinction they make between en dashes used to mean “to” and hyphens used to connect elements in compund words.

16. Publishers make varioius uses of the en dash, and no one set of rules can be said to be standard. Some common uses of the en dash include using it as a replacement for the hyphen following a prefix that is added to an open compound, as a replacement for the word to between capitalized names, and to indicate linkages, such as boundaries, treates, or oppositions.

pre–Civil War architecture
the New York–Connecticut area
Chicago–Memphis train
Washington–Moscow diplomacy
the Dempsey–Tunney fight

Contributed by Greg L (talk) 19:46, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., at 6.78, gives the following examples of en dashes in ranges whose endpoints contain spaces:

• Join us on Thursday, 11:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m., to celebrate the New Year.
• I have blocked out December 2009–March 2010 to complete my manuscript.
• Her articles appeared in Postwar Journal (3 November 1945–4 February 1946).

Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors

Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors gives the following examples, under En Dash and Long Dashes, 13:

• September 24–October 5
• 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

MLA Handbook

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed., under 3.5.6, Inclusive Numbers, gives

Do not abbreviate ranges of years that begin before AD 1.

748-742 BC

143 BC-AD 149

New Hart’s Rules

New Hart′s Rules, under 4.11.1, En rule, gives

Use the en rule closed up in elements that form a range:

pp. 22–36 1939–45 Monday–Saturday 9:30–5:30

Under 10.7, Abbreviations with dates, it further says

With a span of dates c. must be repeated before each date if both are approximate, as a single abbreviation is not understood to modify both dates:

Philo Judeas (c.15 BC–c. AD 50)

Butcher’s Copy-Editing

Butcher’s Copy-Editing, 4th ed., gives the following, under 6.12.1, En rules:

En rules meaning ‘to’ and ‘and’ are usually unspaced: theocratic–military, chapters 8–9, 101–50. However, spaced en rules may be used between groups of numbers and words to avoid implying a closer relationship between the words or numbers next to the en rule than between each of these and the rest of its group:

6.6–8  but  6.6–7.8

September–January  but  18 September–19 January

1215–1260  but  c. 1215–c. 1260

But these spaced en rules should be used cautiously, especially if there are also parenthetical dashes, as the reader may not be able to tell one from the other; and it may be better to substitute ‘to’ in such cases.

Added by JeffConrad (talk) 02:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Jeff’s quick summary

A quick review of the guides I have (plus BCE via Google Books) gives a tally something like this:

• Call for closed-up usage, many examples: CMOS
• Call for closed-up usage, few examples: NHR
• Call for closed-up usage, discourage dash with spaced endpoints, few examples: OSM
• Show closed-up usage, few examples: GPO, MWG, MWSM, MWM, Tur, MLA, MLAM (MLA and MLAM use hyphens)
• Call for closed-up usage, no examples with spaced endpoints: WIT
• Call for closed-up usage, no examples at all: APA
• Show closed-up usage, no examples with spaced endpoints: GMAU, TCS, Garner’s Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage
• Permit spaced usage when endpoints contain spaces, several examples: BCE
• Call for spaced usage when endpoints contain spaces, few examples: CGEU
• Call for spaced usage in number range if symbol changes, few examples: EUESG

In some cases, “few examples” means “one example”. Now I could enter some of the specifics, but doing so would entail quite a bit of work, so I don’t want to waste the time unless it will serve some purpose. JeffConrad (talk) 00:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary, Jeff. To further summarize, the MOS guidelines recently adopted by WP editors (and restored by me a couple of times after being mess with) include a little bit of the "spaced usage" from BCE, CGEU, and EUESG, but otherwise follow the "closed-up usage" of the other guides. Finding a direction to move from there that everyone can live with has proved intractable, so that's where we are. Only a very few editors have said they can't agree with it (see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/dash_drafting#Spacing_of_endashes, 6b); only JeffConrad, Pmanderson, and Macwhiz disagree with spacing dates (Pmanderson's response there was too confused to be interpretable with respect to dates, but we finally know); only JeffConrad and Pmanderson continue to object to Noetica's consensus compromise version, as far as I've heard. Please correct me if I've missed anyone; Pmanderson keeps telling me there are lots (maybe some who said they're OK with spaced usage in dates didn't really mean they're OK with saying so in the MOS?). Noetica and Tony and probably others (sometimes including me, when I'm not in a generous mood, which is usually) are not willing to back down on requiring spaced usage in date ranges, a usage that was accepted by the other 23 editors there, if I've counted correctly, since that would start to introduce inconsistency and confusion into biographies and such, where presently things are in pretty consistent shape, based on guidelines that have been in place for quite a few years. Jeff, thanks again for your earnest interest in this topic and process, even if we couldn't come to terms; and thanks for agreeing that my revert to Noetica's version was the right move for now. I appreciate Greg's attempt to help with what he thought was a good compromise, but it didn't really help on either end. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 2 August 2011 (UTC)