@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans what in the hells is the hyphen with umlaut for?

edit: y'all keep sharing your more creative interpretations by all means, but the serious answer is covered now, thanks! (https://prettyaweso.me/@chunshek/117318469198435860)

@iris @LilahTovMoon What the hell are any of these for?

@Dangerous_beans @iris @LilahTovMoon for frog faces with large mouths

/(°⸻°)\

/(°〰〰°)\

Edit: ah it combines well, lol

@Dangerous_beans @iris @LilahTovMoon or little ones

⸚

@f4grx @Dangerous_beans @iris @LilahTovMoon you have discovered the typographical representations of the German Breitmaulfrosch / Spitzmaulfrosch dichotomy, congrats!

@Dangerous_beans @iris I even forgot about the double oblique hyphen: ⸗

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans @iris
〜 wave dash
〰 wavy dash
〰️ wavier dash
➿ huevos dash

@catsalad @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans @iris huevos 🥚🥚 dash? 🤔

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans @iris

And let's throw in:

⊝ Circled dash
⑈ OCR #dash, apparently

@Dangerous_beans @iris @LilahTovMoon Not sure, but ⹀ is how you would hyphenate in handwriting (at last as taught in schools), which has the advantage over a hyphen of clearly not being originally hyphenated.

miss @Dangerous_beans , mr @iris , miss @LilahTovMoon : don't know about all of these but ‒ (U+2012 FIGURE DASH) is actually really nice as its ment for use within a number (ex the separator in phone numbers) . in fonts with same width digits , the figure dash should also have that same width . you may observe that "0‒1‒2" may look better spaced out than "0-1-2" (hyphen minus) , "0−1−2" (minus sign) or "0–1–2" (en–dash) , this of course depends on your font

@iris Likely for typesetting plural forms in German dictionary entries, e.g., „der Bogen (⸚)“ indicating the plural would be „die Bögen“.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@chunshek @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans you know, that makes sense. I've even handwritten that but never typed it.

@chunshek @iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I was quietly asking myself why a hyphen needs an umlaut and this makes so much sense.

@chunshek @iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans "for typesetting". Meanwhile, u+0308 Combining Diaeresis is crying quietly in the corner

@iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans German lexicography. See here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%B8%9A

@deFractal @iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans German here. I have never seen it in any German dictionaries, although it's nice to know that we could make use of it there.

To me, the umlaut hyphen much rather represents both the median German facial expression and median German emotional state. But what do I know ⸚

@metaphil @iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I’m no expert. I just pasted the character into a couple search boxes.

@deFractal absolutely fine. it totally looks like some „Tschörman Efficiency” thing we would invent if i'd hadn't been invented yet 😅

@iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans something to do with German dictionaries. To indicate if an umlaut should be added if the word is hyphenated there?

@drj @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans other replies got it -- it's a way to abbreviate pluralization rules, where the plural of a noun takes an umlaut the singular didn't have, e.g. Tochter (sgl) / Töchter (pl)

@iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans alloys (i.e. me⃛täl hÿbrids)

@synec @iris @LilahTovMoon I've never encountered an alloy with a umlaut. Is this for fancy high tech alloys?

@Dangerous_beans @synec @iris @LilahTovMoon
High Tech Metal Alloy genres, where the guitars all have more than the usual number of strings, and the time signatures aren't always 4/4

@synec @iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans An umbrella for my letter a's

ca⃛tsa⃛l⃛a⃛d

@iris

⸚ means: "I am watching you intensely"

And in combination:

⸚≺ means "camera is rolling"
⸚≮ means "camera is off"

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@iris
Heavy Metal band names.
@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans it's an indication that your trolly dash has failed and all the contents are now on the floor....?

@iris @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

Nostrils in frogs' faces.

@iris @LilahTovMoon Toffs who are a bit metal, e.g.: Cholmondeley⸚Featherstonehaugh

@iris must be the oldschool 😐, yes?

🤭

@iris@neuromatch.social @LilahTovMoon@tech.lgbt @Dangerous_beans@aus.social

Making tiny faces

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans The soft hyphen is dazzeling, particularly in combination with the swung dash!
Mesmerizing!

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans soft hyphen, non-breaking hyphen, and wavy dash are my favourites.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Also, Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark which is not a dash: ー [edit: is actually a "letter", and can be used inside hashtags]

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans There's a quotation dash!?

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Mood ⸚

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I use the three-em dash on my website for quote citations! Works very nicely.

@lunarloony what font do you use that has it?

@drj Junicode 2 - https://psb1558.github.io/Junicode-font/

@lunarloony

Hah, I regularly use it in my Mastodon toots¹ for the same reason

⸻
¹ e.g. https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@gumnos/117095631306757928

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@lunarloony @Dangerous_beans but there's literally a quotation dash!

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans But it's not looooong enough

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans a few more:
ー katakana-hiragana prolonged sound mark
ｰ Halfwidth katakana-hiragana prolonged sound mark
〜 Wave dash (different from a fullwidth tilde: ～ )

(I'm on my phone so some might've been mangled but those are the full Unicode names)

@gfaster @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I can never type 〜 properly, the inputs are too precise

@andrewt @gfaster @Dangerous_beans if you're on macOS, it's pretty easy 〜 the emoji keyboard also lets you search for random unicode characters as well as emoji

@andrewt I'm used to only ever using it on an IME, so it's never too bad?

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

The pipe symbol (|) on IBM keyboards originated from early ASCII and character set standards, evolving from a logical "OR" symbol into a broken bar (¦) before returning to a solid line on modern displays and keyboards

Some or all if these are not really the pipe symbol 🫤🤷‍♂️

https://youtu.be/BktIY7VbrUs

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans well, that’s about the long and short of it

@LilahTovMoon

This is certainly one of the most informative Fedi posts ever!

Now, I only have to think about which keyboard shortcuts to assign to which dash.

@Dangerous_beans

@mina @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans
Compose in Unix/Linux/BSD has some of these already.

@mina

I’d suggest making “-” a dead key with n levels to cycle through the dashes.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@fiee

Great idea! I'm gonna try this!

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@LilahTovMoon

Hyphen with diaeresis has a mood ❤️

@Dangerous_beans

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Simply dashing.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans hyphen with diaresis doenstcefrn render on my phone. #ios #icecubesapp

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I was going to yolo a turing complete language called "emdash" with ChatGPT, but then @syt told me that I was, as usual, too late: https://esolangs.org/wiki/Dashes

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

Just when I started to think typo squatting was dead

@LilahTovMoon@tech.lgbt @Dangerous_beans@aus.social
wavydash, wavydash
does whatever any of the other dashes can

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

I am in awe of your compilation skills.

This also led me to track down what font the Mastodon SW on this site is using which actually *displays* all of these. It must be very up to date on Unicode symbols.

WRONG: Roboto Regular, it turns out.

CORRECTION: It appears it's actually Microsoft YaHei that has all of these; Roboto is missing a number of the cool ones like the 2 em- and 3 em-dashes.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans wait so the quotation dash is not the same as the em dash? I've been doing it all wrong 😮

@autistic_enby @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans
Actually in British English an aside might use spaced en dash,, US might use unspaced em dash. The em dash would be for cut of speech.
But there is huge variation and house styles. A quotation wouldn't use dashes.

@EI9FEB @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I mean the use in quotations like this:
"this is the quote"
— this is the author, 2026

@autistic_enby @LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans
That's a author for a quotation, not the quote.
Yes, I use an em dish with no space for that, but if it's a preamble it will not have quote marks.

A style guide helps consistency as there is often no single correct usage. Nosy vs nosey, single or double quotes for dialogue. I think British & Irish English is more flexible than the USA. Webster is prescriptive, Oxford reflects usage.

I like to keep it simple, so I only use - – — in regular text.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans HELLS YEAH THREE EM DASH
⸻
That's muh boy!

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans That swung dash is real jazzy

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans You are my hero.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

- en dash
-- em dash
--- eന്ന dash
----- eꦟ dash

@LilahTovMoon 〰️ wavy dash (emoji flavor)

@jleedev @LilahTovMoon

🪱 wiggly dash
🐛 crawly dash
🐴 rainbow dash

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans I use the three-em-dash in lieu of <hr> when composing text in a medium with no easy way to write an <hr>

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

One of my Unicode Toys works as text mutator and can add all (I hope) of those

https://qaz.wtf/u/interleave.cgi?use=dashing&where=all&what=swung-dash&custom=

dashing ➜ d⁓a⁓s⁓h⁓i⁓n⁓g

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Structure purist: the em dash (—) is a dash
Structure neutral: the underscore (_) is a dash
Structure rebel: the dash symbol (💨) is a dash

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans mad dash

Since you didn't include the equal sign you probably left out a lot of OTHER mathematical symbols that are Dashes to the Unwary?

Elegance is restraint.

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans

@LilahTovMoon

If you added the correct usage, and examples, you'd have a small book!

@Dangerous_beans

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Can the wavy dash go through walls?

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Melee players be like 〜〜〜〜〜.

@LilahTovMoon@tech.lgbt @Dangerous_beans@aus.social also psuedo dashes:
一 han character for 1,
ー katakana long vowel

- posted by Seraphine

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans and there's washing-powder Dash :

https://dash.ch/fluessig/?lang=en

@LilahTovMoon
A coworker even introduced me to the 'am dash' yesterday: https://www.theamdash.com/
@Dangerous_beans

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans Break out of discreet typography! Continuous type has arrived; scale your dashes to any dimensions you want.

Also applies to the colon-semicolon-quartercolon continuum. http://lars.nocrew.org/semicolon.html

@LilahTovMoon @Dangerous_beans And then there are the colons. Perfect for using in filenames.

@LilahTovMoon Had an ebook use a really long, thin dash and was wondering what it was.

Copied and pasted it into a unicode character lookup, and it turns out they were using two U+2500 box drawing characters for their dashes ──

──────────── I guess that way you can make your dashes as long as you want.

@LilahTovMoon @aldeka @Dangerous_beans There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in a flower
And I see every one.
— Flowers are Red, Harry Chapin, on Living Room Suite.

Probably haven't listened to it for 30 years, but still remember the lyrics.

@LilahTovMoon Yet all I wish for is a web browser and and iOS keyboard that let me type a non-breaking space (doesn’t even need to be the thin one) to put before :;!? in French.
@Dangerous_beans @blinry

@LilahTovMoon A literal dashboard!