3 ms·
97% human-written
by 16bitvoid 1mo ago
97% human-written
- phasefactor 1mo agoI guess prolific em-dashes is not considered a sign of LLM writing anymore.
- tyrabound 1mo agoIt's actually not em-dashes, they are en-dashes, which is either intentionally to deceive (e.g., swapped) or used incorrectly. Both of which are bad, it's up to everyone to decide on which is worse coming from MITality.
- jacobolus 1mo agoSpaced en dashes – like this – are a correct and accepted typographical choice. Whether to use spaced en dashes or (spaced or unspaced) em dashes is a matter of taste or local convention, and varies from one publication to another. Other than a typo or two where the space was left out on one side of a dash, the dashes in this linked document are just fine. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash
- phasefactor 1mo agoI was not claiming they are not correct punctuation/syntax. My claim is just no one uses them that frequently... When you see dozens of them in the first few pages of a document it raises suspicion.
- jacobolus 1mo agoSome authors use a ton of dashes, while others never use dashes.
- jaggederest 1mo agoThis is likely an artifact of writing standards - not especially suspicious, it's like MIT Tech Review or the New Yorker using diaresis when they need to say reëducate.
- FabHK 28d agoSad that people now consider basic knowledge of typography, punctuation, and orthography a sign of AI.
- ghaff 1mo agoI am not an LLM and use em-dashes and they were house style in my last 20+ years of employment. The whole em dashes == AI thing needs to just stop.
- phasefactor 1mo agoIt is more about the document containing more than sixty of them. They are a completely legitimate piece of punctuation, but even prolific pre-LLM users did not tend to go that wild with them.
- ghaff 1mo agoI did not notice anything about the document in that regard that was worthy of note.
- peri-cl 29d agoSpeaking about style choices, I was curious why you sometimes use the 'f' from the Latin Extended-B block, U+0192, in your comments. I've never seen that before! (I'd meant to ignore it but you seem to be soliciting typography discussions...)
- ghaff 29d agoProbably a fat finger of some sort or it came through a copy and paste. Nothing I do deliberately.
- DonsDiscountGas 29d agoDo you think LLMs invented the em dash? Pre LLM, em dashes were a sign of pretentiousness. Which is why LLMs learned to use them, and why a document produced by a university has plenty of them.