There seems to be no day experience if someone doesn’t see an indication on social media that EM dash is not a text written by AI. These social media posts are in response to ongoing debate on whether EM dash is a creation of AI-generated writing. Some writers and scholars are upset with the EM Dash they cherish, which is a bad rap. As one person wrote: “You can take my EM dash from my cold, dead hands.”
As a writer who doesn’t use AI, I understand the frustration of recent EM-Dashes-are-a ai-ai-ai-sign-ai-sign wandwagon. I certainly don’t want to be accused of using AI when using EM dash. As an English composition coach who wants students to write without using AI, I know it’s easy to lock in a way that allegedly quickly recognizes AI-generated writing.
However, I chose to treat the current EM Dash -ai Kerfuffle as accidental, rather than as a writer or accusation. Artificial intelligence may be new, but the controversy over EM DASH use is not, and the current debate offers an opportunity to try overuse (again).
A year before it was recognized as the birth of the World Wide Web Elements of printing styleshoot through the bow under EM Dash usage. EM is a square measurement in vernacular in typography, and as Bringhurst explains, “an EM is the distance equal to the size of the type”: therefore, “EM is a sliding measure.” In other words, EM is not a fixed horizontal length. It is a horizontal space proportional to the size of the point. So if someone uses the 12-point type, then an EM will level 12 points. Half of em is called en. Therefore, when using the 12-point type, the AN level is 6 points.
On days after the type, Bringhurst recommends using sprints within the range of irreplaceable EM dash like this (like this) that can start phrases in a sentence. Although he did see effective uses for EM dash, such as having written face-to-face conversations, Bringhurst argued that “EM Dash was the standard of the 19th century” and “was too long used in the best modern textual faces.” According to Bringhurst, just as we no longer place two spaces after a period of time at the end of the sentence (from the typography and later the typewriter era held), EM DASH “belongs to the Victorian version of the padding and tense aesthetic”.
Although Bleist’s suggestion is to replace the unsuccessful EM dash with dashes to offset sentence breaks, first of all, people have been limiting the debate of such interruptions.
Philip Corbett in 2011 The New York Times It is pointed out that in newspaper articles, EM dash is being used more and more. question? The EM dash “looks like a twitch; worse, it can indicate a lot of fill and loose sentences and expand with the addition and lining inside the brackets.”
In the same year, Noreen Malone slateshowing how EM dash “dissuades truly effective writing” and “the process of destroying sentences”. Of course, the purpose of EM dash is to interrupt, but the problem is not only that people interrupt writing in a lot, but they are also using it instead of better punctuation. Instead of figuring out the best punctuation marks for a particular writing situation and purpose, people use EM Dash as a jack for all-in-ones, but no one else. Is it better to use commas, semicolon, period or colon? Who cares? Just throw in the exotic dash.
Now, as a direct result of its overuse, it is possible to replace more appropriate punctuation marks and their ubiquity in written materials, which become training data for LLM, and it is no surprise that EM DASH often appears in AI-generated writing. As far as I know, there is no indication that AI deliberately tries to fight from people who use it morally and responsibly. But AI has been fortunate enough to force us to struggle with the use of EM dash in recent decades. So what can writers and teachers do?
As writers, we have a roster of punctuation that we can draw on a specific purpose, our choices can bring better clarity to our writing and showcase writer’s skills. As Andi Zeisler pointed out in “AI Can’t Have My Em Dash”, the EM dash “doesn’t really need to be there”, “is not an integral composition of sentence structure”, “absolutely extra”. This doesn’t mean that the writer has to put down all the dash and surrender it to the AI. However, as writers, we should connect our thoughts smoothly and carefully use the correct punctuation for specific purposes while resisting the charm of EM dash, which may save us the specialist work of choosing precise placement, commas, brackets, semi-neoplasty or colon.
As teachers, we should not automatically think that students use AI when they see EM dash. I reject the concept that em dash is a text written by AI. Whenever I suspect that what I’m reading is written by AI, it’s due to the existence of writing style rather than EM dash. Regardless, whether its use is attributed to AI or simply disconnected or imprecise writing, the presence of EM DASH provides an opportunity for teaching students how to better connect their thoughts in writing and to consider more carefully when and how to use the best punctuation in different situations.
Richard Mitchell (aka underground grammar) once wrote about the word “input”, i.e. “There is no longer any useful difference between “the word that means almost nothing” and “there is no longer any useful difference.” The same can be said about EM dash. In some cases, an EM dash may be required, but in others it is not.
