Subtitled release or track titles often use the hyphen‐minus (U+2D -) as the subtitle separator; an example would be the SoundCloud single DELTARUNE Ch.VII - Vs. Susie (reprise).
I like to ensure typographically‐correct punctuation whenever possible (first guideline in Style/Miscellaneous), and hyphen‐minus is very often not, if not always not, typographically‐correct, so this makes me wonder: Which Unicode dash (en dash –, em dash —, etc.) is, typography‐wise, the preferred one in such a case?
At first, I thought that the plain ol’ hyphen (U+2010 ‐) would work, but then I remembered seeing the en dash (U+2013 –) being used that way, so I am now scratching my head about which one I should go with. Before seeking help here, I did try doing a search myself, but that was of little help; as to why, different style guides recommend different dashes as a subtitle separator. For example, the Oxford style guide recommends the en dash; the APA style guide the em dash. Honestly, I haven’t the faintest clue about what to do now.
I am aware that the standard MusicBrainz subtitle separator is the colon, but it is said in the guideline that the colon should only be used if there be no other punctuation mark, which is not the case here.
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Hyphen is a link between two words to make a new word.
You are looking for the opposite: A separator.
Depending on the size, you can use EN or EM dashes, for smaller or larger separator.
looking at a couple user-made guides in the wiki, I’d prolly go with the Em dash — over the En in this case
edit: yeah, looking at the Wikipedia page on dashes, I’d say the Em fits better in this case (tho the specific use of colons as subtitle seperators is not specifically mentioned there)
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I see. I will go with the em dash then. Thanks, you all.
The en dash is usually used, it’s what the userscript changes a hyphen-minus to if it’s surrounded by spaces on both sides. If an em dash is printed on artwork, I would use that instead, though.
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Hm, I see.
Now that I think about it, one of the examples in Style/Titles#Subtitles, Greatest Hits – Live Flash, uses a spaced en dash as the subtitle separator. Now I don’t know which one to go with again… It really seems like either would be valid. And if it really is the case that either would be valid, how would we settle on one? By choosing the one that is the most commonly used that way out of the two, I assume? And if so, how would we find out which is the one that is commonly used that way?
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There are surely exceptions (it’s just a convention after all), but in my experience, for separators the normal choices are “ – ” (space endash space) or “—” (emdash, without spaces). So if there are spaces, I would default to using endash unless there is a good reason not to, which is what kellnerd’s userscript does. (And on the other hand, to using emdash if there are no spaces, as in this track.)
The Wikipedia page above uses this convention: no spaces when using emdash as a separator, while the section on the endash has the sentence “The en dash is commonly used to indicate a closed range of values – a range with clearly defined and finite upper and lower boundaries – roughly signifying what might otherwise be communicated by the word “through” in American English, or “to” in International English.” – that is, using endash (plus spaces) as a separator in a sentence about its use in indicating ranges of values. (Apparently someone was having fun.)
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