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I just went through your HN comment history going back to 2021 and didn't find a single —

• thomascountz 1y ago
  You're making the point that OP never actually uses the em dash, by surveying their HN comments, in order to defend the notion that no one actually used em dashes prior to their proliferation by LLMs? Or do you mean something else?
  • guelo 1y ago
    I wanted to see an em dash in the wild. In these threads there are always people claiming that they use it but in practice it is very rare.
    • thomascountz 1y ago
      You can find an em dash in my comment history if you're curious. Despite what could be said about poor sample selection, consider the imbalance of the argument being made: the frequency of em dash use is disproportionate to the suspicion thrust upon a sample of writing. I.e., a single em dash is suspicious, regardless of how many times it might show up. Therefore, it's more likely that someone who uses em dashes—even if only rarely—will self-select to respond to a thread like this and feel compelled to defend themselves.
    • Idodbslb 1y ago
      Hola hablame español
• viccis 1y ago
  Haha yep. I never saw a single person use these in internet comments pre-2023. Plenty of hyphens to simulate it - like this - but not actual em dashes. No matter how many people swear up and down that they're so important.