Question

I am using the UTF-16 code "\u2013" in my java property file to display a dash in my page. The page is in French. Now at this link: http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2013/index.htm I see that they say this is an ‘en-dash’. What is an en-dash? A dash should be same in en and fr I think.
On the screen, it shows up as a question mark.
What am I missing here?

Answer 1

en dash is unrelated to english language. It’s named after its length (or width): a dash that is 1en large.

There’s also the em dash, which width is 1em.

1en is the width of the letter n; 1em is the width of the letter m. The former width is half the width of the latter (their name in french typography are resp. tiret demi-cadratin and tiret cadratin. Demi means half and tiret dash: it’s quite clear that one is half the other).

Uses:

• “09:00 – 17:00” is a range and the dash should be an en dash
• “and Paris – the legendary figure of the Trojan War, not the capital of France – said to Hector” should use em dashes where parenthesis could’ve been used

Other facts:

• em is also a relative unit in CSS
• respective HTML entities are – and —.

As for the question mark displayed: is the font used able to display those glyphs? The dash/minus - is OK if the font lacks any other dash.