Yes, it’s nuanced but it breaks up the sentence flow in a different way. Also used for listing things. A comma is more a small pause, like this. A semicolon is used to differentiate two independent related thoughts ; it’s kind of a combination between a period and a comma. A dash can be used for many things - a longer separating of thoughts, listing different points such as this, or just as an intentional emphasis to add a more protracted pause.
Your comment has a hyphen not an em dash. The point of the post is that AI likes to include em dashes, which are wildly uncommon in modern text, as most keyboards don’t have a key for it
Odd, I see them used all the time, and I’m neither. So I guess either my experience is an outlier, everyone I talk to is secretly an LLM, or maybe the meme is pushing an easy conclusion because people in general are bad at picking up on LLM responses and want an easy punctuation mark so they don’t have to think.
It’s convenient for a lot of things. Curly quotes, specialized dashes, mathematical symbols or Greek letters used in math/science, foreign currencies, things like paragraph symbols (¶) or section symbols (§), etc.
aah, so it’s more a choice about the intended sound or flow of a text and not necessary a difference in grammatic constructs, simmiliar to using an oxford comma, or not.
interesting, i’ll have to pay some attention to that, when reading.
The company has a policy of having any newly hired employee (like Steve) introduce themselves at the monthly all hands meeting.
The company has a policy of having any newly hired employee—like Steve—introduce themselves at the monthly all hands meeting.
Em dashes also often replace colons:
I’m going to bring my signature dish: bacon-wrapped dates.
I’m going to bring my signature dish—bacon-wrapped dates.
Em dashes are commonly used to denote interrupted speech:
He started to explain, “I was hungry and you weren’t home yet so I—”
“You’re not a diabetic, you can handle waiting a few extra minutes to eat”
Replacing commas is unusual and probably incorrect according to most style guides.
This is also highly localized. Style guides tend to apply only to one particular country, not all English-speaking countries. The AP guide is used by most American newspapers and magazines, and the Chicago Guide is used by most American book publishers. Each have their own rules on dashes.
It gives rhythm and flavor to your writing. Varied punctuation - where appropriate - is an easy way to spice anything up, give it a little more flavor, more control over how your words are read. There is a quote by Gary Provost that isn’t specifically about punctuation but illustrates this point well, it’s one of my favorites:
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important
do they serve a purpose, that is not fulfilled by the humble “,”?
No.
Yes, it’s nuanced but it breaks up the sentence flow in a different way. Also used for listing things. A comma is more a small pause, like this. A semicolon is used to differentiate two independent related thoughts ; it’s kind of a combination between a period and a comma. A dash can be used for many things - a longer separating of thoughts, listing different points such as this, or just as an intentional emphasis to add a more protracted pause.
Your comment has a hyphen not an em dash. The point of the post is that AI likes to include em dashes, which are wildly uncommon in modern text, as most keyboards don’t have a key for it
They’re pretty trivial to make in any OS — having a dedicated key isn’t necessary.
but most people, outside of professional writers and linguists, don’t use them
Odd, I see them used all the time, and I’m neither. So I guess either my experience is an outlier, everyone I talk to is secretly an LLM, or maybe the meme is pushing an easy conclusion because people in general are bad at picking up on LLM responses and want an easy punctuation mark so they don’t have to think.
Weird, i hardly ever see a normal hyphen, let alone an em dash, but of course it’s not a foolproof method to detect ai, just a strong indicator
Sure. Most people don’t know what an OS is, let alone how to enter special characters.
I think this is something macOS does best — using shift+option hyphen is a bit quicker than alt+0151.
Long pressing the hyphen on the Google keyboard on Android also gives the option of selecting an en dash or em dash.
On Linux, if you have the compose key enabled, Compose key + three hyphens in a row will generate an em dash (en dash is two hyphens).
…well I’m definitely turning that on for my Linux machine then. Thanks for the tip.
It’s convenient for a lot of things. Curly quotes, specialized dashes, mathematical symbols or Greek letters used in math/science, foreign currencies, things like paragraph symbols (¶) or section symbols (§), etc.
aah, so it’s more a choice about the intended sound or flow of a text and not necessary a difference in grammatic constructs, simmiliar to using an oxford comma, or not.
interesting, i’ll have to pay some attention to that, when reading.
Em dashes often replace parentheses:
Em dashes also often replace colons:
Em dashes are commonly used to denote interrupted speech:
Replacing commas is unusual and probably incorrect according to most style guides.
This is also highly localized. Style guides tend to apply only to one particular country, not all English-speaking countries. The AP guide is used by most American newspapers and magazines, and the Chicago Guide is used by most American book publishers. Each have their own rules on dashes.
It gives rhythm and flavor to your writing. Varied punctuation - where appropriate - is an easy way to spice anything up, give it a little more flavor, more control over how your words are read. There is a quote by Gary Provost that isn’t specifically about punctuation but illustrates this point well, it’s one of my favorites:
Damn. That’s actually really cool.
Right? The written word is its own kind of instrument and I dig it