I really like the writing. I wonder if it's his own, or how much is edited. Also: good job correctly using em dashes (I'm looking at you, New York Times).
God, I could have used you yesterday during a debate about space en-dash space or just em-dash. We were revising our design proposal, none of us had a easily accessible copy of Microsoft Word to do it automatically for us. I swear the original writer had em dashes in between the dates (there were so many freaking dates) as well as in the body copy (where they belonged). Then the second designer replaced all of them with en-dashes. Finally I just HTML'd it up and posted it online so they could copy/paste. 3 hours later, all we could do is laugh about how ridiculous of a situation it was. Meanwhile the slack chat for another project was having a debate about premiere vs premier. Get this, the client wanted "premier" because it would allow the table column to be smaller, giving the title column more room. Except the word is question refers to the "premiere date" of television shows. Ahhhhh!
It could be intentional. My dad, a bookbinder, had a large job once from GM. I don't know the exact title they wanted him to print on the cover, but it had the word "employe". Naturally, instead of calling to confirm that "employe" is what they wanted, he did what any reasonable person would do, and he "fixed" their typo for them, only to find out that they had written exactly what they wanted, and he had to redo the whole job. Cost him a lot of money and time. Apparently, employee is one of the words that appears most frequently in their internal records, and they found that since it's a longish word they could shave pennies by not making their secretaries or scribe companies type the whole thing. Thus, "employe" entered the official GM lexicon. I would have to assume they don't use it anymore, considering that nobody does printing anymore with any volume like they did in the '80s and '90s. But still, it remains a lesson in the adage that the customer is always right, and even when it seems painfully obvious that they're wrong, you better double check....the client wanted "premier" because it would allow the table column to be smaller, giving the title column more room. Except the word is question refers to the "premiere date" of television shows.
Dashes are something I notice. A lot. I used to prefer em dash for parentheticals, but lately I find space en dash more readable. That is a poor reason. Fail. I actually prefer to write British English, which is technically incorrect American. The destruction of Latin roots irks me. E.g. 'centre' vs 'center.' The Latin root tells you a 'center' is a 'person who cents.' English is bad enough without destroying what little virtue it has left. I'd love to be an editor or typographer. Such a shame they're low-demand fields with lower pay.space en-dash space or just em-dash
the original writer had em dashes in between the dates
Yep, always wrong. Hyphens are technically permissible, but I strongly prefer en dashes. the client wanted "premier" because it would allow the table column to be smaller
Except the word is question refers to the "premiere date" of television shows.
ever read "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue" by John McWhorter? he's a prof at Columbia University. amazing read, and amazing to listen to him read his own audio book too. It talks about why english is the way it is (Useless "Do", etc) , and why it's so different from other germanic languages.