If you can’t read a fucking em dash —already a commonly-used punctuation mark— without thinking the author must be AI, then you are both insufficiently trained —either in grammar or in how to use your own keybord— and bad at identifying AI responses.
I know I trapped myself into doom scrolling on Insta recently but almost all the descriptions on posts are generated with an AI and really poorly done where they don’t even match up with the media being shown
I don’t care, I’m not giving up the em-dash in my own writing. Good luck reading half of my run-on sentences without it~~~
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.
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~~~~~~~
You can still have the same function using a hyphen. How do you even type an em dash on a standard keyboard?
Compose - -
I assume compose is meant to be a key? What key is compose?
The Compose key.
If you don’t have a compose key, well, you should have one. You can define it easily in the Kde control center. I suppose there’s the equivalent in Gnome.
It was introduced by Sun. It’s very convenient.
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.
Em I don’t know. Just seems like a dash with ah New Zealand accent, eh.
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’.
TIL, thanks
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
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
I like using an en dash (–) separated by spaces instead
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 🙃
Maybe she’s AI, maybe she’s literate.
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?
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.
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.
