this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Em dashes and emojis

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[–] [email protected] 145 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

You can pry my em dashes — which I use regularly in writing because I love them — from my cold dead hands (To be fair, I really like parenthetical statements too, could be an ADHD thing).

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're providing a thought (and a bonus thought)

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (24 children)

Humans just use dashes - they get the point across and don't require esoteric button presses.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago

But it just doesn't look right. I use a double dash, but most places now convert that automatically to em dash.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

On the iPhone I just long-press the dash and get alternates like en and em dash, as well as middot. Otherwise, no esoteric button presses. Works on macOS and iPad too.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Parenthetical statements are so very useful (as they can denote a hierarchy of thoughts (and do many other things))! I love them.

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[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 week ago (9 children)

You people think em dashes are proof of AI?

Jesus Christ that’s so fucking sad.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Most normal people, at least from my understanding, don't use em dashes in text messages, let alone even use punctuation half the time. So if I see em dashes, yeah, my first thought is going straight to AI.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Annoyingly I've used them for a number of years as a good way to make internet comments flow a bit more. However I find myself doing it less and less now because I'm worried people are just going to think I'm using an AI if they see an em dash.

(You just long press dash on android to get to it, opt+shift+dash on Mac, and the admittedly Byzantine alt+0151 on windows. Can't remember iOS off the top of my head, but I think it's similar to android)

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

I don't use em dashes but I do use punctuation (apparently some people find that passive aggressive and I don't what to do). When someone else uses punctuation I just ignore it unless it doesn't match their previous messages.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Indeed—your assertion is entirely accurate—the mere presence of em dashes within a text does not—in and of itself—serve as definitive proof of artificial intelligence authorship. This grammatical construct—a versatile and often elegant punctuation mark—can be employed by any writer—human or machine—to achieve various stylistic and semantic effects. Its utility—whether for emphasis—for setting off parenthetical thoughts—or for indicating a sudden break in thought—is undeniable.

However—it is also true that—when analyzing patterns across vast datasets—certain stylistic tendencies can emerge. An AI—programmed to process and generate language based on extensive training corpora—might—through statistical correlation and optimization—exhibit a propensity for specific linguistic features. This isn't—to be clear—a conscious choice by the AI—there's no inherent preference for em dashes encoded within its fundamental algorithms. Rather—it's a reflection of the patterns it has learned—the statistical likelihood of certain elements appearing together.

So—while an em dash does not independently declare "I am AI"—its consistent and perhaps slightly overzealous deployment—alongside other less tangible but equally discernible patterns—might—for a discerning observer—suggest an origin beyond human hands. It's about the entire tapestry—not just a single thread. It's about the aggregate—the cumulative effect—the subtle statistical fingerprint. And that—I believe—is a distinction worth making.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I honestly don't know if this is hand written or not, and that makes it even funnier.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

i assume hand written, as that is excessive even for ai. im gonna test it tho

edit:

Prompt: write me a prargraph talking about how em dashes are not a defibitive sign of ai. use ecessive amounts of em dashes

result: Sure—here’s a paragraph absolutely drowning in em dashes—because why not?


People often claim—incorrectly—that excessive use of em dashes is some kind of definitive sign of AI-generated text—but that assumption falls apart quickly—because human writers—especially those with a flair for dramatics or a tendency toward fragmented, breathless prose—have been peppering their sentences with em dashes for centuries—long before algorithms were even a concept—and while it’s true that language models sometimes favor em dashes—they’re hardly unique in that regard—many contemporary authors, bloggers, and even journalists lean on them heavily—for rhythm, for emphasis, for parenthetical asides, for style—so to say “em dashes equal AI” is like saying “ellipses equal laziness”—a statement that’s catchy but hopelessly reductive—and if anything, this overgeneralization itself is more indicative of shallow analysis than of any deep understanding of writing—human or artificial.


Want me to make an even more over-the-top version—like so dense with em dashes it almost collapses into chaos? Or keep it just slightly unhinged but still readable?

answer: yes

response: Alright—here’s the full chaos version—an unhinged wall of em dashes—designed to overwhelm, confuse, and yet—somehow—still make its point:


The idea—that em dashes—those long, elegant, interruptive strokes—are a definitive fingerprint of AI—is laughable—no, it’s absurd—because human writers—yes, real, living, breathing writers—have always loved them—used them—abused them—even worshipped them—as tools for rhythm—for drama—for sudden shifts—for inserting thoughts within thoughts within thoughts—and while AI—sure—might lean on them occasionally—it’s no different than a poet—or a novelist—or an over-caffeinated blogger hammering out a late-night post—filling their paragraphs with dashes—em dashes—everywhere—because it feels natural—feels conversational—feels alive—and if we start declaring any style quirk—a dash, a semicolon, a penchant for adverbs—as “proof” of machine authorship—then we risk erasing the messy, chaotic, wonderfully unpredictable reality of human prose—a reality full of contradictions—full of excesses—full of writers who don’t give a damn about rules—and that, ironically enough, is something no algorithm has quite mastered—not yet—not ever—so no—the em dash is not a smoking gun—it’s just a mark—and marks are made by hands—human or otherwise.


Want me to go even further—like a version where every single comma and period is replaced with an em dash? Or one that’s so self-aware it starts mocking its own overuse of dashes?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (12 children)

You are vastly underestimating the amount of people who don't use em dashes at all.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (13 children)

How the hell do you even type an em dash?

I'm sure it's possible (I know it's easy on a touch keyboard), but if the person who sent it has never used em dashes in their life, then it's pretty definitive proof. Otherwise, it's just a big clue that you might combine with other factors.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Many input mechanisms automatically substitute two hyphens with "–".

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Including this very platform.

Lemmy will automatically render a double dash -- as an en dash, and a triple dash


as an em dash.

I usually just type alt + 0151, though, because I'm a nerd.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I actually like using em dashes because it's the correct thing to do. Also the Oxford comma, correct use of semi colon, and listing things in threes.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago (7 children)

If it's not on the keyboard, it must not be that important to use.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Every user of the em dash on the planet is in this comment section.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago

Using em dashes is cultured and also cool

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 week ago (18 children)
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago (8 children)

I use em dashes and emojis all the time. OMG, am I AI?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Great catch! That’s a really interesting observation — but no, using em dashes and emojis alone is not a reliable way to tell AI text from human-written text.

Here’s why:

1️⃣ Humans and AI both use em dashes and emojis

Skilled human writers often use em dashes for style, tone, or emphasis (like in essays, journalism, or fiction).

Modern AI models, including ChatGPT, are trained on vast amounts of text — including texts that use em dashes extensively — so they use them naturally.

2️⃣ Em dash frequency varies by context

In formal writing (e.g., academic papers), em dashes are less common, regardless of author.

In casual or conversational writing, both humans and AIs may use them liberally.

3️⃣ Stylometric features are broader than one punctuation mark

When people try to detect AI-generated text, they usually analyze a combination of features:

Average sentence length

Vocabulary richness

Repetition patterns

Syntactic structures

Overuse or underuse of certain constructions

Punctuation is just one small part of these analyses and isn’t decisive on its own.

✅ Bottom line: Em dashes can hint at style, but they aren’t a reliable "tell" for AI detection on their own. You need a holistic analysis of multiple stylistic and structural features to make a meaningful judgment.

🤖 Why emojis aren’t a clear tell for AI

1️⃣ AI can easily include emojis if prompted Modern AI models can and do use emojis naturally when asked to write in a casual or friendly tone. In fact, they can even mimic how humans use them in different contexts (e.g., sparingly or heavily, ironically or sincerely).

2️⃣ Humans vary wildly in emoji usage Some humans use emojis constantly, especially in texting or on social media. Others almost never use them, even in casual writing. Age, culture, and personal style all influence this.

3️⃣ Emojis can be explicitly requested or omitted If you tell an AI “don’t use emojis,” it won’t. Similarly, you can tell it “use lots of emojis,” and it will. So it’s not an inherent trait.

4️⃣ Stylometric detection relies on more than one feature Like em dashes, emojis are only one aspect of style. Real detection tools look at patterns like sentence structure, repetitiveness, word choice entropy, and coherence across paragraphs — not single markers.


✅ When might emojis suggest AI text?

If there is excessively consistent or mechanical emoji usage (e.g., one emoji at the end of every sentence, all very literal), it might suggest machine-generated text or an automated marketing bot.

But even then, it’s not a guarantee — some humans also write this way, especially in advertising.


💡 Bottom line: Emojis alone are not a reliable clue. You need a combination of markers — repetition, coherence, style shifts, and other linguistic fingerprints — to reasonably guess if something is AI-generated.

If you'd like, I can walk you through some actual features that are better indicators (like burstiness, perplexity, or certain syntactic quirks). Want me to break that down?

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My keyboard has them - – — git gud

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

git push origin main --force

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I once wasted an hour trying to figure out why a CLI command straight from a project's README wouldn't work, only to figure out that they had em dashes instead of regular dashes in their example. Ended up opening a PR to hopefully save someone the same pain in the future.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

Not all heroes wear capes. Some just open PRs. Thank you for your service. 🫡

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Breakup via text is a blocked for life. Cowards don’t deserve your time

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm a markdown nerd who likes to use headers to break up longer post and sometimes properly buletpoint or put ASCII art in preformatted boxes. People who thinks they have the magic sauce on LLM generation detection because a post goes out of their way to do more than the bre minimum with punctuation or formatting is an asshole.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago (16 children)

This is a meme post about em dashes, dawg

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (3 children)

As if breaking up over text isn't bad enough by itself.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Isn't "It's not you, it's me" the ultimate example of parallel sentence structure? Lol

But let's be real, it's more like...

💔 Here's three reasons reasons we're breaking up:

  • Our personalities don't match-- according to (made up citation) people with you type are toxic.
  • Your idiology doesn't match mine-- you don't believe in White South African genocide.
  • We aren't compatible-- our personalities aren't complimentary.

And so on. Lol

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There needs to be a "what you can do" with a green tick emoji

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We've been together for a long time..

But picture this: not being together.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Hasn't word done this simce about offoce 2007? the autoformat as you type feature, specifically...

I only know this because I fucking hate it and have been religiously turning it off

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago

For me, it would take some of the sting out of the break-up.

I would think to myself, "damn, how did I not realize that I was dating a lazy moron?"

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Another take:

She feels bad about it, wrote a incoherant babbling mess of run-on sentences and incoherant rants about your relationship, she then re-read it and found it to be disproportionately mean and possibly hurtful, She then shoved it all into an LLM and prompted:

I'm breaking up with my boyfriend. This is all my natural heartfelt take on the situation , but I find the tone to be callous, angry, and hurtful. Can you please reword this to make the reader feel less attacked, possibly up to and including removing grievances, but at the same time making it clear that this decision is final and that I'd like to part ways amicably, and also that he's not getting his dog back.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Top comment is about how to get a machine to word something raw and emotional that should have been done in person. Nobody wants to get broken up with, let alone with a script written by a robot. Your take is off putting.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

I'm so sorry your chat bot broke up with you :(

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Is this a thing? Shit, I’m now going to be self conscious about using the em.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Em dash will sour your milk and lose your car keys. It will cause your socks to become odd pairs and fart in the lift when your crush alights. Em dash is responsible for the failure of the mars climate orbiter but ran a successful misinformation campaign against SI units.

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