The punctuation can be like spices in food. They increase the flavor and dish, but can overwhelm a lot of mixture and waste food. The EM dash has always been like Sumac: a great, complex taste in its place, but one that can confuse people unfamiliar with it, and if highly used. AI chatbots such as Chatgpt often behave more like salt, sprinkle EM dash generously in their writing, and lead many people to add to the wrong bit of grammar with writing that seems to be untouched by human hands.
EM dash – that long, beautiful horizontal line – incredibly flexible, which is why many people feel worried about employing it. It can change the almigre, brackets, colon and elliptical and serve as a stylistic flourish for any kind of writing. It is popular with everyone from Ernest Hemingway and Emily Dickinson to James Joyce and Stephen King. However, now it is seen as a calling card for AI writing.
Chatgpt and other AI models understand EM dash and how to use it, but AI feels how flexible the EM dash can be, slot it to places where you can normally find an array of other punctual marks. This has become a way to identify AI writing, as most people do not use them in everyday writing. It is not even on a standard keyboard, opposite the small n dash. You have to try to insert EM dash, and the chip can input it faster than a human.
Chatgpt is trained on a huge dataset of the text made from the Internet. The result is a fanhouse mirror version of all those styles, and it turns out that the mixture has a bottle of grammatical cumac.
M dash removed
I have not used EM dash many times in my career as a journalist, but I have employed it with some regularity in my story writing. This is not a theory, just a priority. But in AI writing EM dash abundance stories have made me a second guess because I create stories and articles.
It is difficult to fight the allegations of AI Fakery. Sometimes my writing can not be particularly inspired, but it is often confused with AI written by AI. My linguistic pair means that I almost never include an EM dash as I used to do.
If you are using AI writing equipment, even under the most innocent conditions, you can find the continuous use of EM dash annoying. You can just chat or whatever other AI chatbot you want. Lellular. When you write a prompt, add the line, “Avoid using the EM dash in the response,” or “Use a coma and duration instead of the EM dash.” The model will oblige in most cases.
You can also add it to the memory or equivalent of chats in other chatbots. Also, if you are specific then you can bend AI for your stylistic will.
Some brave typographic innovators have tried to strengthen EM dash. For example, “I’m dash,” Developed by the Australian creative agency Cocogun, the declaration of human originality. If EM dash is coemed by machines, it is thought that perhaps humans need a new dash that AI cannot copy. You can see what it looks like.
Whether it will stop, it is yet to be seen, but it is unlikely. The keyboard shortcuts are not designed for rebellious punctuation, and you have to spend time to explain every reader and editor you do.
In addition, writing like a human is not just about punctuation. It is about the rhythm and rhythm of the language. Word option and syntax options, and one million other options reflect your thoughts and personality. Using EM dash does not remove your soul and does not make you a robot, no matter how suspicious it is about it.
I do not want to throw EM dash just because some trillion token got very excited about the punctuation. It is still one of the most expressive grammatical devices in English language. It enhances you an idea or obstructs yourself, even irony. But, this may have to be limited to my story writing until people learn that Sumak does not mean a little bit that my soup is from a can.
