• melfie@lemmy.zip
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    20 days ago

    They’re useful—especially to avoid over-using other punctuation such as semicolons; I also use them to avoid back-to-back sentences with exclamation marks!

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I use them when connecting a thought in between another thought—for example, what I just did right now—and then returning back to the original thought. I use a semicolon when connecting two related thoughts together*; LLMs tend to only use one em-dash, so I’m hoping that by using two of them instead—and a semicolon instead whenever an LLM would use an em-dash—there will be no confusion as to whether or not I’m human.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        I like to alternate between sets of em dashes and sets of parentheses to obscure the fact that I’m using too many “asides” in my writing.

        • Psythik@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          I do that too on top of everything else I said. It’s an ADHD thing. I write how I think, with lots of tangents.

      • Blisterexe@lemmy.zip
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        19 days ago

        You’re absolutely right! I have never seen an LLM use em-dashes in the way you do — if they use them, it’s always to add a pause to the sentence.

    • chunes@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      They’re useful. Especially to avoid over-using other punctuation such as semicolons. I also use them to avoid back-to-back sentences with exclamation marks!

      There you go. It’s easier, clearer, and less pretentious.

      • WizardOfFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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        20 days ago

        Okay, but you’ve just created a sentence fragment, which is fine unless you were trying to use complete sentences.