13 Feb 12 19:40, mark lewis wrote to Roy Witt:


 RW>>> 7.
 RW>>> Apostrophe, Comma, Period, Colon, Semi-Colon, Question Mark,
 RW>>> Exclamation Mark, Brackets.

 RWebb>> Also quotation marks.

 RW>> I quit at 8...one more than required by the question. 8^)

 ml> when i read the answers for this one, my first question was "what it
 ml> the difference between a 'hyphen' and a 'dash'?"

It's not the appearance that you should be concerned with, it's the usage.

A dash is used to type a break in a sentence flow or to indicate an abrupt
change in thought. Dash i.e. He is-how shall I say it?-an ineffably
officious oaf. Most of us don't differentiate between a dash - and a
hyphen - . In fact, I use an ellipsis to seperate an abrupt thought in a
sentence mainly because three ... are easier and faster to type than a
single - where you have to reach over a row of keys to get to it, while
typing ... is a normal move because it's located on the same row as some
other keys used often.

Whereas a hyphen is used to indicate the continuation of a word divided at
the end of a line. Not possible in most of Fido software, as the text is
wrapped, no matter that the wrap isn't necessarily at the end of a line.
And of course there are rules to hyphenating that have to be followed.

 ml> they are the same character as far as i can see... and they both are
 ml> the same as a 'minus' ;)

Remember that usage determines whether it's a dash, hyphen or a minus
sign. In math, it is called a minus sign and it's appearance in a
numerical equation means to subtract this number from another. Or that
this is a negative number: -0F is not equal to -0C or -0F  -0C


                R\%/itt


  ... Only those who will risk going too far can possibly
  ... find out how far one can go ~ TS Eliot


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