Many of us have bad habits when writing. Back in the 90s, when there was such a thing as a chat room online, I think it was a Halloween night when all the room regulars decided to chat in disguise (virtual costumes, if you will). Within minutes of my arrival under my new secret name, someone identified me. When I asked how he knew, he said, “It’s all those ellipses. You love your three dots.”
I broke the ellipses habit. But I’ll never–ever–get over the damn em dash.
Once again, thanks, Marika, for the button.
Hahahaha! I love this one!
Me, too. =)
I, too, am a dash-a-holic. Oh – the burden of it!
No one knows how we suffer. =)
I love Dash’s, period.
And apostrophes.
unnecessary that’s are big with me … and I struggle with then and than all the time although now I do try to pause and say … is time involved?
– it all!
Sometimes that em dash says a lot.
I had a professor in grad school who hated parentheses. Whenever she returned a paper any parenthesis would be circled with “Why not a dash?” written above.
She was – in my humble opinion – obsessed with ().
I’d probably do that, too–I’m from the parentheses don’t belong in formal writing school. Though I often make use of them in informal writing and in interactive online conversations as “whispers.”