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The lack of em dash usage in popular culture speaks more about typical people than it does about whether a text's author was an LLM. In fact, the average person

The lack of em dash usage in popular culture speaks more about typical people than it does about whether a text's author was an LLM. In fact, the average person has never even noticed—let alone considered—that the em dash exists. If they've read for 20+ years, they've seen at LEAST hundreds of them. Imagine being an NPC (a human bot), flattering yourself with the thought that people who understand the language are language bots...

ryandrake 2y ago
21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024 and 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level[1]. “The average person” isn’t really a high bar, unfortunately. 1: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-s...
- andelink 2y ago
  Is this a legitimate institute? The linked article offers many statistics and even financial figures but cites no sources or studies. There is a “TOLL FREE” (capitalized) phone number in the website footer, and the comments are full of prostitution ads.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Wikipedia[1] contains more links to data, if you want to sample a few more sources. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
Not at all. It's just inconvenient for most of the Windows-using world, as the characters are not accessible. It's ALT+[whatever] or Google-it-and-ctrl+V. Hence an awful lot of internet writing didn't really use any of that stuff properly. See, e.g., Boss Szabo's blog: https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-many-traditions-of-non-governmental.html https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-many-tradition... Two chained hypens, as was pretty much the norm back then. And did you just call me an NPC?!? It's not a matter of "understanding the language" at all. It's a matter of convenience and of a sort of evolved convention.

ryandrake 2y ago

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024 and 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level[1]. “The average person” isn’t really a high bar, unfortunately. 1: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-s...

andelink 2y ago
Is this a legitimate institute? The linked article offers many statistics and even financial figures but cites no sources or studies. There is a “TOLL FREE” (capitalized) phone number in the website footer, and the comments are full of prostitution ads.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Wikipedia[1] contains more links to data, if you want to sample a few more sources. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago

Not at all. It's just inconvenient for most of the Windows-using world, as the characters are not accessible. It's ALT+[whatever] or Google-it-and-ctrl+V. Hence an awful lot of internet writing didn't really use any of that stuff properly. See, e.g., Boss Szabo's blog: https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-many-traditions-of-non-governmental.html https://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-many-tradition... Two chained hypens, as was pretty much the norm back then. And did you just call me an NPC?!? It's not a matter of "understanding the language" at all. It's a matter of convenience and of a sort of evolved convention.