A short but sweet entry today, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, though; with a bit of luck, I should have something rather special for you next week. For now, though, on with the show!
First up is an article on Samuel Arbesman’s Social Dimension blog over at Wired, entitled “The Rarity of the Ampersand: Frequencies of Special Characters”.
Mental Floss recently published a primer on the many and varied uses of the em (—) and en dashes (–), including a mention of my personal favourite, the “compound adjective hyphen”. This is the case where a compound term such as “Pulitzer Prize” is joined to another term not with a hyphen but instead an assertive en dash to yield, for instance, “Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist”. And if your interest is piqued by Mental Floss’s brief treatment of the usage of the dash, then hopefully the chapter on its history in the upcoming Shady Characters book will be worth waiting for!