4 ms·

The en and em dashes and my 3rd and 2nd favourite punctuation marks after the semi-colon. Recently I was accused of using AI to produce something because of my

The en and em dashes and my 3rd and 2nd favourite punctuation marks after the semi-colon. Recently I was accused of using AI to produce something because of my use of em-dash. I was able to show my use of the character going back years in my university work, long before recent AI.

StableAlkyne 2y ago
> Recently I was accused of using AI to produce something because of my use of em-dash Absolutely absurd of them to accuse you of using AI just because you used punctuation above a middle school level.
- 0_____0 2y ago
  AI reliably uses em-dash, normal people writing generally do not, even if they know what they are, because it's more complicated to insert them. So yeah, there's a reason it's known as a "tell."
  - perihelions 2y ago
    - "normal people writing generally do not" You're generalizing inappropriately across cultural boundaries. Is the author of the OP article an abnormal human? Does "normal" mean "of average writing level"—is it now socially acceptable to ostracize and bully people who write well? Because, when you're accusing people of being bots (like the HN parent related), that's a seriously unpleasant form of bullying. It's dehumanizing, quite literally. (When you write with sincerity, you pour your own humanity into your words; what does it mean to deny that?)
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      This is an incredibly overwrought response. You could just as easily read the inverse of "normal" to be "exceptional," which in fact is how I meant it.
  - StableAlkyne 2y ago
    I routinely use em-dashes in technical/scientific writing. The GP was talking about a false accusation in university — a place where you generally produce formal writing. >it's more complicated to insert them Word automatically replaces the hyphen with it when between words surround by space — because it's the correct punctuation. I sincerely hope you don't believe it's too complicated when the task is done for you by Word — the most popular word processor. Additionally — just to test it out — long pressing hyphen yields the character on my phone. This has allowed me to effortlessly pepper this reply with slightly extended — and a touch controversial — horizontal lines. Just because your writing style doesn't use em dashes — a rule taught to literal school children — doesn't mean it's not "normal." Finally, I am sorry to report that my use of the em-dash has not allowed me to transcend humanity and become a cyborg — though I will return with a follow up post if I suddenly sprout a Serial port.
    - bobwaycott 2y ago
      Heh. This would have been just a bit more fun if you’d used it correctly—without the surrounding spaces.
      - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
        That depends on your style guide.
  - richardatlarge 2y ago
    chatGPT has a strange allergy to the semicolon— never uses them. that’s why it overuses and misuses the em-dash
  - K0balt 2y ago
    These days I just use a dash and it gets autocorrected into an em-dash. So I guess AI put tithe em-dash there, but it didn’t write my essay.
  - acheron 2y ago
    iOS autocorrects -- to an em dash. It's not complicated at all.
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      I wasn't aware of this entry mode. That seems more reasonable than digging around in the mobile keyboard next to "±" and "₱" when it comes to commonplace use.
  - account-5 2y ago
    I write in quarto markdown so en-dash is '--' and em-dash is '---' with is converted for me.
  - vincent-manis 2y ago
    My spelling is generally very good, and I know the difference between “e.g.” and “i.e.”. I guess I'm an AI.
perihelions 2y ago
I've seen people accusing each other on HN of being LLM's over the em-dash.
- atoav 2y ago
  Thst is sad, I use the em-dash wuite often — however — I dislike using it without spaces, maybe that saves me.
  - aae42 2y ago
    i also disagree w/ the article, it almost always needs spaces around both en and em dashes
K0balt 2y ago
Uuurgh. I’m a writer by trade and this has become a way for people who find my writing inconvenient to dismiss my thoughts. I’m finding an impulse while writing these days to censor writing styles which are much more efficient at conveying complex thoughts in favor of styles which are more “human” but fail to convey nuance. It’s debilitating to anything beyond discussion of sound-bite sized thoughtlets. I fear that this will be a race to the bottom for human discourse and intellect.
FumblingBear 2y ago
The same thing has been happening to me lately too. Someone asked if I really knew and typed the alt-code every time I use it and I replied yes, if I'm on a Windows machine. On the one hand I agree it's often a tell for AI slop, but it's frustrating that nobody seems to dig any deeper than that anymore.
airstrike 2y ago
I suppose the trick is to use the uncorrected em dash--like this--so nobody thinks you're a cleanly formatted LLM. More generally I guess the more punctuation mistakes you make, the lower the chances your text is flagged as written by AI, so there's now an optimal amount of mistakes that maximizes the perceived value of your work.

StableAlkyne 2y ago

> Recently I was accused of using AI to produce something because of my use of em-dash Absolutely absurd of them to accuse you of using AI just because you used punctuation above a middle school level.

0_____0 2y ago
AI reliably uses em-dash, normal people writing generally do not, even if they know what they are, because it's more complicated to insert them. So yeah, there's a reason it's known as a "tell."
- perihelions 2y ago
  - "normal people writing generally do not" You're generalizing inappropriately across cultural boundaries. Is the author of the OP article an abnormal human? Does "normal" mean "of average writing level"—is it now socially acceptable to ostracize and bully people who write well? Because, when you're accusing people of being bots (like the HN parent related), that's a seriously unpleasant form of bullying. It's dehumanizing, quite literally. (When you write with sincerity, you pour your own humanity into your words; what does it mean to deny that?)
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    This is an incredibly overwrought response. You could just as easily read the inverse of "normal" to be "exceptional," which in fact is how I meant it.
- StableAlkyne 2y ago
  I routinely use em-dashes in technical/scientific writing. The GP was talking about a false accusation in university — a place where you generally produce formal writing. >it's more complicated to insert them Word automatically replaces the hyphen with it when between words surround by space — because it's the correct punctuation. I sincerely hope you don't believe it's too complicated when the task is done for you by Word — the most popular word processor. Additionally — just to test it out — long pressing hyphen yields the character on my phone. This has allowed me to effortlessly pepper this reply with slightly extended — and a touch controversial — horizontal lines. Just because your writing style doesn't use em dashes — a rule taught to literal school children — doesn't mean it's not "normal." Finally, I am sorry to report that my use of the em-dash has not allowed me to transcend humanity and become a cyborg — though I will return with a follow up post if I suddenly sprout a Serial port.
  - bobwaycott 2y ago
    Heh. This would have been just a bit more fun if you’d used it correctly—without the surrounding spaces.
    - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
      That depends on your style guide.
- richardatlarge 2y ago
  chatGPT has a strange allergy to the semicolon— never uses them. that’s why it overuses and misuses the em-dash
- K0balt 2y ago
  These days I just use a dash and it gets autocorrected into an em-dash. So I guess AI put tithe em-dash there, but it didn’t write my essay.
- acheron 2y ago
  iOS autocorrects -- to an em dash. It's not complicated at all.
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    I wasn't aware of this entry mode. That seems more reasonable than digging around in the mobile keyboard next to "±" and "₱" when it comes to commonplace use.
- account-5 2y ago
  I write in quarto markdown so en-dash is '--' and em-dash is '---' with is converted for me.
- vincent-manis 2y ago
  My spelling is generally very good, and I know the difference between “e.g.” and “i.e.”. I guess I'm an AI.

perihelions 2y ago

I've seen people accusing each other on HN of being LLM's over the em-dash.

atoav 2y ago
Thst is sad, I use the em-dash wuite often — however — I dislike using it without spaces, maybe that saves me.
- aae42 2y ago
  i also disagree w/ the article, it almost always needs spaces around both en and em dashes

K0balt 2y ago

Uuurgh. I’m a writer by trade and this has become a way for people who find my writing inconvenient to dismiss my thoughts. I’m finding an impulse while writing these days to censor writing styles which are much more efficient at conveying complex thoughts in favor of styles which are more “human” but fail to convey nuance. It’s debilitating to anything beyond discussion of sound-bite sized thoughtlets. I fear that this will be a race to the bottom for human discourse and intellect.

FumblingBear 2y ago

The same thing has been happening to me lately too. Someone asked if I really knew and typed the alt-code every time I use it and I replied yes, if I'm on a Windows machine. On the one hand I agree it's often a tell for AI slop, but it's frustrating that nobody seems to dig any deeper than that anymore.

airstrike 2y ago

I suppose the trick is to use the uncorrected em dash--like this--so nobody thinks you're a cleanly formatted LLM. More generally I guess the more punctuation mistakes you make, the lower the chances your text is flagged as written by AI, so there's now an optimal amount of mistakes that maximizes the perceived value of your work.