Dash dilemma

I recently wrote something and sent it on to my friend for review. She's an editor, and absolutely loves copy editing, a job that I absolutely loathe. I don't mind everything about copy editing. For instance, I can usually spot a grammar gaffe or spelling error (although this is usually difficult to do with your own writing). But, there are deeper issues that editors must know and spot, such as when to use a trademark symbol or which type of dash (em or en) to use.

In this latest piece, she made a lot of changes to the dashes. I think I was using a hyphen (which honestly looks like an en dash to me), and she changed them all to the em and en dashes. I find this very impressive. I really couldn't care any less about whether I'm using an en dash, em dash, or hyphen. They are all more or less the same to me. If I see that the dash is butted up between two words, it's a hyphen. If it's between dates or numbers, it's an en dash. If neither, it's a separator. In writing, such as on my blog, instead of an em dash I use the hyphen with spaces to flag that it's a separator and not a hyphen. This is mainly because I'm lazy and have never figured out how to form an em dash on my blog. And now it's such an ingrained habit, that I probably wouldn't change it anyway. After all, my blog is a creative writing outlet far different from my actual work writing.

But such review exercises make me rather happy to have an editor - both in my personal life and work life.