this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
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edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think it's because most people don't bother learning, but I'd guess people writing books (or at least their editors) would know. AI eats up all the books and learns how to use em dashes. The majority of the internet-using population does not use it. And so you get the heuristic that em dash = AI. This is just a total guess, by the way.

Looked up the difference between hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes in high school. Maybe for curiosity, maybe for some assignment, I forget by now. Started using em and en dashes, not going to stop now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

more like it requires the use of an alt code, and humans aint got time for that shit in casual 'speechtype.' there's literally nothing you can say with an emdash that a well-placed semicolon (and/or a few other tools) couldn't solve with a slightly reconstructed sentence structure. if you're using them, especially repeatedly within a couple paragraphs, you're either: unusually resistant to the tedium and friction of breaking your stride to type alt 0151; writing formally; a bot. i'll give you three guesses which is most likely.

personally I've stopped using proper grammar and spelling and formal language and capitalization and whatnot as a sortof 'proof of humanity.' people who use em-dash in anything but formal writing are just self-flagging themselves as bots at this point. even in formal writing you better have yourself a robust edit log.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Push dash twice on a phone, no alt code needed. Almost no one uses social media on a computer anymore.