> super-comma

This is the first time I've ever heard the character ";" referred to as such. It's always been "semi-colon" to me, is this a region/culture difference?

I'm not saying you're wrong, I find it interesting.

> super-comma

I would have assumed it's a synonym for apostrophe. super-comma <-> upper-comma, with super meaning upper, like in superscript.

I think of it as supersedes the comma in the order of operations. You work inward, or outward (depending which way you read the list.)

no it's always been semicolon, the "super-comma" comes from describing how to use it. "It's similar to a comma but like a super comma."

Huh? I've always understood that the clause after the semicolon is peripheral; the meaning of the whole sentence does not change without it.

thats one use for it. supercomma is another.

same character, used differently?

i call it a super comma when its separating a list with commas within the sets.

so if i am listing colors like green, blue, red; foods like apple, orange, strawberry; and seasons like winter, summer, fall.

it's one use case for an em-dash, because whatever you have inside it has commas in the phrase.

square and rectangle situation. a supercomma is a subset of semicolon.

it's a cadence thing for me

Em-dash matches how I speak and think-- frequently a halt, then push onto the digression stack, then pop-- so I use them like that.

Em-dash matches how I speak and think (frequently a halt, then push onto the digression stack, then pop) so I use them like that.

Em-dash matches how I speak and think, a halt, then push onto the digression stack, then pop, so I use them like that.

A poster commented that he read parenthetical remarks in an old-timey voice (I’d guess the trans-Atlantic accent). I love that idea. But for me they read almost as if you’re saying them under your breath (or a character is breaking the fourth wall and talking to the camera quietly). I read them but my brain assigns them less importance.

Em-dashes keep everything on the same level of importance in my brain.

Commas don’t feel as powerful. To be fair to the comma I’d probably do this:

Em-dash matches how I speak and think: A halt, then push onto the digression stack, then pop. So I use them like that.

Edit: I accidentally used an em-dash in the word em-dash. Interestingly HN didn’t consider changing the dash to be a change in my text so didn’t update it. I had to make a separate change and take that change out for my dash change to stick.

For me, a sequence of sentences, strung together by commas, is more in line with how I output thought, and better matches what I believe my speech pattern is.

I dislike parens because they're hard to read, mostly. Em-dashes are so open and legible.

I picked it up from Salinger. I find that if I can't eradicate parenthesis by some other means, or if it's more effort to do so than I want to spend, em-dashes usually replace them without doing any harm and aren't quite so ugly, aside from being useful in other cases. In particular, parenthesis at the end of a sentence are awful, while a single em-dash does a similar job much more neatly and looks totally natural.