> > > but on my system it is an actual em dash -- a much
> > > longer character, thus the confusion
> > > is unlikely.
> >
> > How can it be a longer char, if the font is fixed width?
> 
> The ASCII dash has whitespace around it, which em dash lacks.

In any case, what I see with emacs -Q (in Emacs 28.2)
is that the em dash, with no surrounding space chars,
seems to have the same width as all of the other
fixed-width chars.  Hence it _appears_ as if it were
adjective "replace-provided".  See attached screenshot.
___

Also, "lower case" is better as "lowercase".

https://english.stackexchange.com/a/59413