I've always known about the three, but the author is correct saying it's about availability. You used to have to go into the "special character" pop up, click on the n- or m-dash, go back to the document and paste it in. In more formal documents, maybe I'd do that, but most of the time it is just a big pain in the ass, and most people don't know the difference, so why bother. I do use the space dash space now for the n-dash. But where is the m-dash??? Usually under the "Special Characters" option I went into Tools menu to check if Special Characters is there...nope. Format menu choice?? Nope. Insert? Ah! There it is...after having to look through each of the above very slowly to see if the Special Character option is there. Now I have to look at the characters - there used to be very few special characters and you could find the m-dash. Now there are thousands of special characters and I don't have the time to look through them all. So now I have to go to the help documentation to search for the m-dash.

OK, on in the help search box, nothing comes up under "m dash," "m-dash," "em-dash," or "em dash." Not even showing up under "dash." Fuck. OK, so now I have to go the ASCII table to find the ASCII decimal code. I found it - it is ASCII code for m-dash is 151, but how do I put that in the document??? I search online help - no help.

I go back to the Special Characters option under (Insert menu. OH! There's a search box on top. I type in "m dash" THERE IT IS!!

So I had to go through all that, just to find the m-dash. Why? Sheesh, what a nosebleed. You might say, "Of course, why didn't you do that in the first place?" Because 1) I'm an imperfect being, and 2) I've used all of those other ways before - I didn't start on computers in the last 5 years, I've gone through a lot of changes so I know a lot of ways to do the same thing. And from app to app, some still work one way way, some not.

I didn't do my old standby, though. That would have been my next step — just go to Google search, type in m-dash as I'll always find it there, then just copy and paste the m-dash. That almost always works. Why didn't I do that first just now? Because I just wanted do it within the word processor, because that's the way it "should" be. And eventually was, after much work.

So, fuck all the special characters. I just use commonly understood equivalents if I can.

But, the point is that I've always know the difference between all three, it's just — why even bother? It's a colossal pain in the ass.