I have explained it to myself in the most satisfactory way;—but you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can——It will not satisfy you I know; but you shall not talk me out of my trust in it.
Hence, another way to describe this level of reading is to say that its aim is to get the most out of a book within a given time—usually a relatively short time, and always (by definition) too short a time to get out of the book everything that can be gotten.
For more quotations using this term, see Citations:—.
1962, Jack Frohlichstein, Mathematical Fun, Games and Puzzles (in English), Courier Corporation, →ISBN, page 9:
Bet anyone he can't correctly name the next highest number to every number which you will give him. […] 43 — he will say 44 87 — he will say 88 123 — he will say 124
"Your information, sir," the Librarian says. "Are you smart enough to tie that information into YOU ARE HERE?" Hiro says. "I'll see what I can do, sir. The formats appear to be reconcilable. Sir?" "Yes?" ”The blueprints are several years old. Since they were made, the Enterprise has been purchased by a private owner—" "Who may have made some changes. Gotcha." Hiro’s back in Reality.
1820, Cruikshank, All among the Hottentots capering to shore[2] (painting; in English):
D—n the Devil .. he be going to eat me!!! — Rot me if he ain't as bloody minded as a Manchester butcher! Oh! dear! Oh! dear!! D—n your outlandish jaws!!
(dated,fiction)Used to replace part or all of a person's name, a place name, a date, or so forth.[chiefly 19th c.]
1748, a Lady, in a Letter to her Friend in the Country, A Free Comment on the Late Mr. W—g—n’s Apology for His Conduct; Which Clears Up the Obscurities of That Celebrated Posthumous Work, and Dissipates the Clouds in Which the Author Has Thought Proper to Envelope His Meaning (in English), London: […]W. Webb, page 15:
I hope D—ds—y will look to theſe literal Errors, he being the only one of the Trade I can venture to truſt.
Used as a ditto mark in lists or tables to indicate a repetition of appropriate content above.
^ Joan G. Nagle, Handbook for preparing engineering documents: from concept to completion, 1995, p. 114: We can use the word none or N/D (no data), or insert an em dash; any of these entries show that we haven't simply forgotten to fill the cell. N/A is commonly used for not applicable. It's good practice to footnote N/A or N/D the first time it is used.
⟨—⟩ is not used when the subject is a pronoun; e.g. я ру́сский(ja rússkij, “I am Russian”) or with predicative adjectives.
⟨— —⟩ is preferred over parentheses when the supplemental information is necessary to understand the writer's point and cannot be dropped.
A dash or a hyphen is used in Russian apposition when the first word (or first words) is not a form of address (e.g. товарищ(tovarišč)) and the second word is an appellative.