> ("--", the old school way of writing it)

The old school of writing it in digital documents. Typesetting predates and is not limited to digital documents.

Good point, but I think it's a little more complex than that.

To my knowledge (and what I meant by "old school"), it was common to type a "--" dash on typewriters[0] because most of them lacked en- and em-dashes, which are obviously not digital documentation devices.

But yes, typesetters of old (old, old school!) had myriad glyph blocks available to them for pressing!

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter#Typewriter_conventi...

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1718627440 2 hours ago | parent [-]

On a typewriter you can write symbols overlapping, so if you write '--' it becomes '–'.

	▲	sarreph 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure... But overstriking takes more time and effort, which is why "--" was the convention.