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I've been employing em-dashes extensively since I went on a JD Salinger binge circa 2002. Also, "incidentally", for the same reason. I use "Nb" a lot, from read
by alabastervlog 2y ago
I've been employing em-dashes extensively since I went on a JD Salinger binge circa 2002. Also, "incidentally", for the same reason. I use "Nb" a lot, from reading a bunch of DFW years ago. Oh, and that very-precise construction he does with "which" all the time, I stole that.
Before LLMs, I think em-dashes mostly signaled that you read books and paid attention to details, to the extent they signaled anything.
- arduanika 2y agoTo generalize your point: A lot of the "brown m&ms" that we've walked around with for detecting a writers status, education, etc., are less useful in an age of LLMs.[1] We might even be entering some waves of counter-signaling. [1] They'll never totally nail all of DFW's mannerisms, though.
- abyssin 2y agoWhat is this very precise construction?
- alabastervlog 2y agoSomething like, “the monks wore brown habits, which habits were made from wool”. The slight ambiguity if you don’t do that now irks me, having seen a way to eliminate it.