What i want to know is: When a second person finishes anothers sentence, does the second persons sentence need to star with a capital letter? "I hate--" "--mondays" Yes i know thats not an em dash, sorry. I dont know how to access special characters for this thing.
(Hold down alt key while typing 0151 on your numerical key pad. That makes an em dash!) Are you just sitting back coming up with all of these problems for no particular reason except to satisfy your curiosity or are you writing something that requires you to seek these answers? Thease are really good questions. I've never thought of this one or came acrossed it before. John said: I hate Kate said: mondays Well, this is a bad example, because Mondays will always be capitalized (unless your language is latin derived). But since Monday is English, then this is a bad example. Let's try... John: I hate— Kate: Skim milk. John: I thought this— Kate: Was going to be fun? First off, I don't believe Kate's dialogue would begin with an em dash. John's would end with one though because he's being interrupted. I bet it would be capitalized, since it begins a new person's dialogue. Just a guess, but it seems right
Well, "Mondays" would be capitalized because "Monday" requires a capital "M." Otherwise, no. It isn't necessary for the reason you mention. The double-dash IS a perfectly good indicator of an em dash and often works better for lots of reasons (many involving conversion from one software program into another).
it's not a double-dash... it's a double hyphen... hyphens and em dashes are not the same size, though in some fonts they may appear to be... and using the double hyphen is the standard way to indicate an em dash in your ms...
