23 June 05

Arguing About Dashes

I’m working on the biggest publication project I’ve ever tackled. I’m doing the design, layout, and production editing for the California Wildlife Diversity report to Congress. This is hitting my desk a chapter at a time, and my job is to turn it into something that looks good, incorporating about 50 maps. The report will then become a book, about 300 pages, and the book will include 4-color photos.

The editor, a good friend of mine, is excellent. We see eye to eye on most details, I catch a lot of things she misses and vice-versa, and it’s a pleasure to work on this because it’s a project that’s being well managed. (My next two weekends will probably involve a lot of office time, but I had planned on my entire June being a nightmare, which it absolutely isn’t.)

Barbara and I cycled back from a friend’s house tonight arguing about how you punctuate the following four words, used to describe one of the bioregions in the report: Central Valley Bay Delta. Central Valley is one entity; Bay is a second; Delta is a third.

Barbara thinks it should be Central Valley—emdash—Bay—endash—Delta. I think the endash should be a slash, though I dislike them (they’re untidy and ugly, a bad combo). We discussed this heatedly for about a mile and a half, as the California fuchsia by the side of the road starts to come into bloom and the sun already sets a few minutes earlier than it did just two days ago…

Posted by at 09:50 PM in Books and Language | Link |
  1. No hope, I suppose, of convincing anyone to come up with a civilized name for this region? I think your solution is typographically clearer but I take a slash in such a context to indicate two different names or aspects of one thing (“Ortega y Gasset, philosopher/diplomat”). Em-dash en-dash, on the other hand doesn’t mean anything to me. I’d just look at it and say “huh?”

    Isn’t this what prepositions are for? :-)
    dale    24. June 2005, 13:23    Link
  2. What about a simple period between the sections?

    Central Valley . Bay . Area

    Or a colon?

    Central Valley: Bay: Area

    I know it’s not convention, but then the way the sections are represented is not convention either.

    It’s amazing what you can end up arguing about when you start knowing the jargon of a certain profession. I groaned when I heard talk like this when I was in architecture:

    “I’m not sure this cross-sectional axis variant should violate the vernacular precedent’s contextual spatial typography, because the orientation of the aedicula’s focal point in relation to the main facade’s entrance creates an offset of visual continuity that interrupts the repetition of motif elements.” (my quote from a heated conversation I once had) They could simply say: “Don’t break the repetition of motifs by cutting the end off.”

    Sometimes too much vocabulary loses the original intent.

    Hope you worked out the problem.
    butuki    24. June 2005, 21:52    Link
  3. Dale, Butuki: thanks for your comments.

    Sigh.

    Turns out the Bay and Delta are considered an entity also, or almost. (For wildlife purposes they are so interconnected as to be impossible without the other.)

    I went out yesterday and bought the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. I am still not convinced about the endash solution, but a hypen might work between Bay and Delta.

    Oy.

    Butuki: That is QUITE a paragraph. Sounds like the kinds of things I used to have to wade through at the Harvard Press, Deleuze and co, talking about literature and language and philosophy and things.
    Pica    25. June 2005, 06:52    Link
  4. I’d go with Central Valley Bay slash Delta.

    Central Valley Bay/Delta

    Do you need to use the emdash to separate Valley and Bay?
    Karen Winters    27. June 2005, 16:18    Link
  5. Could you say “Central Valley Bay and Delta? Does Central Valley modify both Bay and Delta equally? Or is it important that the Delta is part of the Bay? If the latter is true, then Bay/Delta doesn’t seem to work.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Tim
    Tim    30. June 2005, 06:41    Link

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