There was a recent podcast episode by 99% Invisible defending the em-dash
It seems that its usage in AI generated text increased after feeding the AI lots of 19th century literature, which seems to have been its previous peak usage. I don’t hate it - it can make text more legible by breaking it up into smaller chunks. It’s an oversimplification to automatically discount any text with an em-dash as AI generated.
Em I don’t know. Just seems like a dash with ah New Zealand accent, eh.
I liked using em dashes, but now I’ve stopped. I’m ecen less likely to fix minor spelling and grammatical errors that I otherwise would’ve, because at least it will be easier to recognize a human behind the comment or post.
Also, signing my name like this helps too: ,.),.)==============D~~~~~~~
I refuse to stop using en dashes. I’ve been using them because they are good typography, and the fact that clankers got clued in to that doesn’t make it wrong.
Classy
Well em dashes existed long before AI or computers. Many humans use them in writing, so it doesn’t necessarily indicate AI was used.
This comment would have been great — had it not been for the lack of an em dash to create irony.
“Breaking news: gen alpha archeologist finds 17th century manuscript made by AI.”
I’m 43 and em dashes were rare in random slack messages. Now they are — everywhere.
That is true but now you see them more often than before in writings of younger people.
I use en- and em-dashes religiously in my LaTeX documents, and I’m not going to start using the wrong kind of dash on purpose. Might as well abandon grammar while we’re at it.
I never see anyone in posts about this point out that many common word processors autocorrect en-dashes to em-dashes depending on what follows. Plenty of documents written by humans have em-dashes in them because autocorrect put them there.
En dash isn’t the hyphen-minus and is not on the keyboard. It’s a separate kind of dash, typically used for ranges like ‘1939–45’.
I’ve been using them for a long time, as they are also used in German typography like em dashes in English typography – only surrounded by spaces. They are easy to type on a Linux or MacOS keyboards layout (E.g.
Opt+-)
The only autocorrect I liked because I have no clue how to manually insert an em-dash otherwise
On MacOS:
Opt+Shift+-En dash is the same without the shift
just do like I do, go to wikipedia and copy the character from the page for it.
but on the internet, you might also be able to do
—, depending on if it’s allowed.There were a couple years where spelling/ grammar checks where it would always correct like half of the regular dashes id use into em dashes, and id have to copy an email dash after I spell checked, then ctrl +f all the regular dashes and replace them with the coppied em dash
The other one is the quotation marks. Most people use “these” ones, while LLM’s use “these” ones.
Yes, they’re different lol
It’s also the case with ’ and ’
The quotes are also common when copying from word as well.
You can pry em dashes out of my cold, dead hands.
I like using an en dash (–) separated by spaces instead
I just use semicolons like they should be used in the vast majority of cases where an LLM would otherwise disregard conventional writing and opt for flare.
I see, myself i use semicolons sometimes too but I tend to use dashes more oftenly
Where’s your lucky onion abe?
If we press the EM dashes hard enough, no AI model will ever use them again. Then, we can prove we’re human with EM dashes.
Maybe she’s AI, maybe she’s literate.
Meanwhile, here I am learning how to type em dashes manually on my work MacBook.
Alt-shift-minus, very simple. Many extra symbols are available on Mac via the alt key. If you turn on the onscreen keyboard and hold the alt key (and other modifiers), all the symbols are shown on the respective keys.
I was using em dashes before AI made them uncool, no fuckass thieving robot is gonna make me change my typing.
The AI uses em dashes because people used em dashes.
Why should I change—he’s the one who sucks!
I was providing advice to one of my bosses on how to scan cover letters for AI, and I outed em dashes. It pained me because I love them, but enough ppl don’t know how to use them properly thats it’s actually a reasonable flag 🙃
Em dash is good punctuation and I won’t let you philistines take it away from me.
Right. It is used in books often. Maybe people don’t read?
That’s different, the AI can’t generate paper. /s
I will use them and not feel bad about it. I will not let AI take them from me
Do you use an alt code to type them?
Control + alt + minus, or just two – next to eachother falowed by a word. It’s transfered into m-dash in most word processors. Also almost any correction tools handle them very well almost seamleslly.
On what do you think AI was trained? It didn’t learn that out of nowhere.
Use WinCompose instead.
