How many of you actually manually use em-dashes?

[Tyranomaster]

In an AI discussion thread, there were quite a few people who said they use em-dashes. In some places, like google docs, if you double hyphen (--) it will replace with an em-dash. However, in the forum editor, for example, it will not. First off, this implies that some people who are making forum posts that include em-dashes are either psychopaths that are using the alt code (alt 0151) (Edit: it doesn't work in the editor), or they are preparing a forum post elsewhere (this is even more insane if you consider it as a forum comment, and not the original post, which could be long enough to justify trying to get your thoughts straight in a different document before posting).

This, for anyone wondering, is an em-dash -> — . Even using the alt code in this editor didn't insert it, and I had to enter the alt code elsewhere and copy the character in. Its a single long character.

Regardless, this led me to wonder about just who is using em-dashes? Are they a subset of native English speakers? Non-native? North American English? Translated? I wonder, because until the rise of GPT, I'd see an em-dash in, literally, 1 in 1 million characters, maybe even less. It'd be reserved for the very, very occasional news article headline. For context, I live in the central US. I separated North American and Non-North American (British Variant English) into two categories due to discrepancies between the rest of the Anglo-sphere and the US and Canada's usage of certain words and phrases (and grammar).

At this point, I view em-dashes as a calling card for AI assistance or full blown AI generated text. A lot of people, I believe, don't fully grasp that asking GPT to "translate" something from their native language into English is likely altering the meaning they're trying to convey, and they don't fully grasp that they've essentially asked a biased human translator to translate for them. It gets even worse if they ask it to also do anything else to transform their meaning (make it more appealing/easier to understand/"better").

It could be that there is a subset of non-native speakers in a particular country, where their language does use an em-dash like character, and direct translation leads to a lot of em-dashes. It could also be a recent trend. So, lets see what the distribution looks like.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

No, Non-Native English Speaker. I use grammarly or similar sites, google doc edit function. Never used chatgpt or similar sites for anything, obviously never used those sites for editing. I don't think I've ever used em-dashes.

 

[Tyranomaster]

I'm almost certainly going to have to have a follow up thread with age-ranges. I suspect that for some reason, the young'uns are using em-dashes.

 

[Madmcgee]

I love to use them and only really figured out they were a big 'no-no' after catching on that AI likes them as well.

I still use them, lol, but then again, my work is filled with wacky punctuation because I like to write as if I'm narrating it out loud as I go. It's just how my brain works, I usually have to go back and axe most of the EM's and assorted ellipses, commas, and the tide of italics so my shit doesn't look like I'm more crazy than I am.

Then again, I wasn't ever good at English. I can tell one hell of a story, but 'writing'? Ha! I freaking suck at that.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I'm almost certainly going to have to have a follow up thread with age-ranges. I suspect that for some reason, the young'uns are using em-dashes.

I am most certainly not young.

 

[Tempokai]

I write sentences that would use em-dash, but because I write those sentences in haste, disregarding grammar, I temporarily replace them with comma. When I edit, I add them, be it manually or with suggestion from Grammarly or ProWritingAid. Hell, first sentence could use em-dash, but I will not edit it in lol. Non-Native English speaker I am.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I use em-dashes, but on the program I use (Libre Office) I have to do three dashes. After that, the dashes are highlighted in blue, and I can right click them to correct them. If you ever see me use em-dash on the forum it will look like this (---). By the way, I have actually done that for several posts. You can go through some of my posts and find one.

If I had to do it right now on the forums, it could look like this: Tyranomaster---the master of theropods---put a leash on his Thesaurus.

 

[Dec]

Em dashes are what we use for dialogue in my language, instead of quotation marks.
Used them a lot, still use, and will be using.
There is nothing wrong with them, and all that hate only emerged after "AI" became popular among wannabe authors, as it uses them in unnecessary places.

I suspect that for some reason, the young'uns are using em-dashes.

I was once young. Now I'm not.
Age doesn't matter here; the content does.

 

[Tyranomaster]

I still use them, lol, but then again, my work is filled with wacky punctuation because I like to write as if I'm narrating it out loud as I go. It's just how my brain works, I usually have to go back and axe most of the EM's and assorted ellipses, commas, and the tide of italics so my shit doesn't look like I'm more crazy than I am.

I write sentences that would use em-dash, but because I write those sentences in haste, disregarding grammar, I temporarily replace them with comma. When I edit, I add them, be it manually or with suggestion from Grammarly or ProWritingAid. Hell, first sentence could use em-dash, but I will not edit it in lol. Non-Native English speaker I am.

Em dashes are what we use for dialogue in my language, instead of quotation marks.
Used them a lot, still use, and will be using.
There is nothing wrong with them, and all that hate only emerged after "AI" became popular among wannabe authors, as it uses them in unnecessary places.


I was once young. Now I'm not.
Age doesn't matter here; the content does.

I don't think that em-dashes are inherently bad. They have good uses, and I've seen them. The AI fingerprint comes down to overuse, at least I believe so. In English dialogue, an em-dash can represent someone being cutoff by someone else starting to talk. It can also tie together sentences in a particular way. I think the AI hate comes from when a 3 paragraph selection uses 8 em-dashes. The current iteration of GPT utilizes the em-dash in place of other punctuation that would be more commonly used.

A well placed em-dash is perfect.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

I don't think that em-dashes are inherently bad. They have good uses, and I've seen them. The AI fingerprint comes down to overuse, at least I believe so. In English dialogue, an em-dash can represent someone being cutoff by someone else starting to talk. It can also tie together sentences in a particular way. I think the AI hate comes from when a 3 paragraph selection uses 8 em-dashes. The current iteration of GPT utilizes the em-dash in place of other punctuation that would be more commonly used.

A well placed em-dash is perfect.

To be fair, you can go through my stories, and you'll not find an em-dash every chapter. It's not like I'm thinking to myself "how can I include an em-dash here?" But I'm amazed I've not been accused of Ai yet, since I do use them.

 

[Dec]

To be fair, you can go through my stories, and you'll not find an em-dash every chapter. It's not like I'm thinking to myself "how can I include an em-dash here?" But I'm amazed I've not been accused of Ai yet, since I do use them.

You can't be accused of AI usage when you are an AI.

 

[Madmcgee]

To be fair, you can go through my stories, and you'll not find an em-dash every chapter. It's not like I'm thinking to myself "how can I include an em-dash here?" But I'm amazed I've not been accused of Ai yet, since I do use them.

AI has a funky way of inserting them though... I can swear it's reasonably easy to tell when AI puts them in or when a human does it.

The current iteration of GPT utilizes the em-dash in place of other punctuation that would be more commonly used.

Like Tyrano said, GPT sort of bungles this and makes it easy to spot, among the other issues, AI writing--for the moment...

 

[melchi]

I am not sure what those fancy dishes are supposed to be used for.

 

[ShrimpShady]

Not a native English speaker, but I very seldom use AI tools to catch the occasional grammatical hiccup.

I used to never use em dashes (mostly because I didn't know how to type them), but after ChatGPT firmly placed them in the public consciousness, I actually started using them. They're just nice to have, you know.

"Uhh but it'll make you sound like AI."

I don't care. I have other wacky writing quirks that signal my work as clearly not AI-generated.

I'm also in my mid 20s. Not sure if that's young or old.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Speaking of em-dashes. There was even a time in my story where I didn't correct the dash. I was looking, and this came from the second chapter of Frozen Vampire Queen. I am pretty sure there were none before this, and the very first one is a screw up where I didn't correct the dashes...

 

[Madmcgee]

Speaking of em-dashes. There was even a time in my story where I didn't correct the dash. I was looking, and this came from the second chapter of Frozen Vampire Queen. I am pretty sure there were none before this, and the very first one is a screw up where I didn't correct the dashes...

Yuppers, I catch those pesky accidents all the time. Though I write in Google Docs, so when I edit in SH, (bad habits are hard to avoid) I'll hit my Mario Kart double-dash and not even think twice about it.

 

[Succubiome]

I use EM dashes liberally -- I find them useful for interjecting thoughts that are at once relevant and offtopic -- but hearing they're a favored tool of AI makes me sad.

Well, I usually use "--" instead of literally EM-dash because it's easier to type and everyone knows what I mean anyways, though.

I do think that might be why they're so prevalent in AI, though-- having breaks in thoughts can help hide that there is no coherent thought there.

 

[Ai-chan]

Ai-chan recall reading published english books with em-dashes being used. Can't recall the titles, but this was back when Ai-chan was still a middle schooler in Japan. They're mostly one of those intellectual type fictions, the kind that was super hard to read and somewhat boring.

 

[Zagaroth]

What's funny is, I never used to use em-dashes at all.

All of this stuff about AIs and Em-dashes made me need to learn what the proper use of an em-dash was. Now I have started to use them.

Quick tip: holding the window key + pressing the period [.] key brings up a tool to select emojis and symbols — very useful.

It gives me fast access to this as well: ‽

Oh, and I am 50, so on the old side for here probably.

messing around now: ಠ_ಠ ‱※₶₹ʛɢʮ↮↸↺⇇¾ⅷ⅝⨀⨎⨛⨩⩎απᾀέΌᾠᾨͷϿϾ

So there's a lot of symbols available with that little command. :D

 

[LordAstrea]

North American English Native Speaker
I really like em dashes overall for flow sometimes, connecting certain items/sentences instead of using a colon/semicolon if it feels right and for a specific pause I am going for. It is kind of hard to explain when the em dash just 'feels right' over other punctuation I could pick. It's rough that AI tends to overuse it and makes em dashes a sort of red flag.
I have Pro Writing Aid, and its main uses for me are spelling mistakes, detecting passive voice (its suggestions are...not very good most of the time, and it is obsessed with semicolons), and for converting my -- to —.
One author I can think of who used em dashes a good bit is Joe Abercrombie. Usually it's for adding an aside or extra detail because of a narrator's dry, witty tone—sometimes for dialogue with pauses or sudden shifts in thinking.