It’s sad, because for most people the use-case for an m-dash is relatively narrow—a parenthetic interjection relevant to the topic (but not sufficiently off-topic for brackets), and needing a subtle call to authority—it mostly popped up in academic or pseudo intellectual non-fiction, or in faulknerian ponderous fiction, but also as a hapless crutch for endlesss neurodivergent layers of qualification.
So I am going to claim disability discrimination about this brutal and unjust sudden boycott, on behalf of crew #adhd.
I just realized that I could have double-layered the m-dashes there, eh? Missed opportunity. Oh what the hell, I need to prolong lunch break juuust a little bit more, so
I just overuse parantheses instead, as you noted. You know you’re rambling when you have several layers of them, like I’m writing a conversation in Lisp.
My main point is: you need to understand and play this game of tango.
Very true, and good point. The average technology consumer has no clue of what is going on behind the pretty pictures. I don’'t say that to denigrate them. It’s a lot to digest. If you hit the average Joe with a barrage of information and stuff he needs to stop doing right this minute, he’s going to think you’re a bit paranoid and perhaps a touch mental… message not received.
They are one of several signs of LLM writing. That said if you’ve always used them then you do you
Not the person you replied to but allow me to chime in: I’ve been using em dashes for decades and I will not stop using them because AI has started playing with them—no more than I will stop writing because AI can write too ;)
You’re not getting downvoted for the LLM thing. You’re getting downvoted for doubling down on a stupid argument. Em dashes – and en dashes for that matter – have legitimate uses in the English language. One symptom does not make a diagnosis. English is barely a respectable language in the first place. Dumbing it down even further to satisfy your preconceptions is, simply, stupid.
Anti-intellectualism as a defence. Nice. Abandon grammar and take language where an LLM can’t follow. Surely we’ll be able to tell a text written by a human from one written by a machine if the human writes it like a dumbass, I can’t see anything wrong with that. i mean why even use proper punctuation and capitalization an ai wouldnt write sumthin like dis isnnnt it better you can tell a human wrote dis
Are we at war with em dashes now? —? I’m starting to feel like the only person who actually knows how to type them on a keyboard.
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It’s sad, because for most people the use-case for an m-dash is relatively narrow—a parenthetic interjection relevant to the topic (but not sufficiently off-topic for brackets), and needing a subtle call to authority—it mostly popped up in academic or pseudo intellectual non-fiction, or in faulknerian ponderous fiction, but also as a hapless crutch for endlesss neurodivergent layers of qualification.
So I am going to claim disability discrimination about this brutal and unjust sudden boycott, on behalf of crew #adhd.
Edit: shits and giggles
I both resent and resemble that remark.
I just realized that I could have double-layered the m-dashes there, eh? Missed opportunity. Oh what the hell, I need to prolong lunch break juuust a little bit more, so
I just overuse parantheses instead, as you noted. You know you’re rambling when you have several layers of them, like I’m writing a conversation in Lisp.
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Well, full lulz as that was tongue in cheek although not wrong! And appreciation for the semicolon. Punctuators: Rise Up!
Ahem, edited for consistency.
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Very true, and good point. The average technology consumer has no clue of what is going on behind the pretty pictures. I don’'t say that to denigrate them. It’s a lot to digest. If you hit the average Joe with a barrage of information and stuff he needs to stop doing right this minute, he’s going to think you’re a bit paranoid and perhaps a touch mental… message not received.
Not the person you replied to but allow me to chime in: I’ve been using em dashes for decades and I will not stop using them because AI has started playing with them—no more than I will stop writing because AI can write too ;)
You’re not getting downvoted for the LLM thing. You’re getting downvoted for doubling down on a stupid argument. Em dashes – and en dashes for that matter – have legitimate uses in the English language. One symptom does not make a diagnosis. English is barely a respectable language in the first place. Dumbing it down even further to satisfy your preconceptions is, simply, stupid.
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Anti-intellectualism as a defence. Nice. Abandon grammar and take language where an LLM can’t follow. Surely we’ll be able to tell a text written by a human from one written by a machine if the human writes it like a dumbass, I can’t see anything wrong with that. i mean why even use proper punctuation and capitalization an ai wouldnt write sumthin like dis isnnnt it better you can tell a human wrote dis
Have I made my point?
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I’m not going to let LLMs enstupidify my writing.
I’ll continue using en dashes and em dashes — they’re very easy to type on macos, iOS, and Android.
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