also me when people accuse me of being ai slop for using em dashes just because big tech trained their models by stealing authors work.
em dashes are typographical faffery and have always been (in my opinion) a marker of writers who take themselves, and the surface level of their style, far too serious.
just use commas, my friend
em dashes, en dashes, and commas have different meanings and uses
aren’t all of them “do a short pause”?
no.
- comma: do a short pause
- hyphen: connect two related concept words to loosely create a new word
- en dash: signify a range
- em dash: do an abrupt, possibly long, pause or signify an attribution
- ellipses: do a trailing, possibly long, pause
Teaching myself to stop using the em dash has been a real pain. It helps with the flow of reading particularly when talking about technical content. I’ve gone back to the semicolon, sadly.
to quote david herman’s michael bolton in office space:
why should i change, he’s the one that sucks
What an astute observation! You are absolutely right, many people can confuse well written responses as AI and that can be frustrating. Simplifying the language is a great way to make your text seem more personal and human. Let me know if you need help with anything else!
