I used to be an em-dash user, but now my opinion is that I’d rather be perceived as someone who does not want to be confused with an LLM. So I’ve changed my writing style.

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Wowfunhappy an hour ago | parent | next [-]

My feeling is that my writing doesn't sound anything like an LLM, so if someone thinks I'm an LLM because I used an em-dash, that's on them. That, or I royally screwed up and need to do a better job as a writer. At least with today's LLMs.

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theK 6 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What is the typical motivation to start using em-dashes?

Why go the extra way to have a slightly elongated dash when a normal one would just as well do the job?

I might be conpletely off here but I've never seen a situation where using a normal dash where a long one should be causes any sort of syntactic trouble.

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jackp96 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They're just so handy! I do think LLMs tend to use them in a specific way, though.

So maybe tweaking your usage (ex. no spaces around them) or using a technically incorrect en-dash might offer the desired effect while subtly signaling that your message isn't AI-generated.

I still use them — mostly for pauses — but I'd like to think my voice sounds distinct enough from an AI that people can tell.

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rplnt an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I've only ever been using "regular" dash, a minus, for that. How do you even type yours? If I ever needed differently-sized dashes (and I don't know the difference between them) I always used wiki to copy them.

(disclaimer: I feel like this obsession with dashes is special to native English speakers, which I'm obviously not)

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Syntonicles an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I for one am striving for clarity and couldn't care less about being confused with AI.

However I've only ever used regular dashes. How do you type an em-dash? Is it OS specific? I've taken to using Emacs insert-char with a list of frequently used ones in my scratch buffer. My memory for Unicode is unreliable.

	▲	feanaro 11 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> How do you type an em-dash? Is it OS specific? On Linux X11 at least, you can enable the Compose key and then press `<Compose>---` which results in — and `<Compose>--.` which gives you –
	▲	topgrain2 41 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Keyboard layout specific. Macs with their default English layout use “option-shift-dash” which is really easy to remember (and relatively discoverable, as such things go) which is why using proper m-dashes (not just double-dashes) used to be a strong indicator a poster was using a Mac, before LLMs took the character over. On iOS you type it by pressing dash and holding until alternative options come up, same way you type e.g. accented characters.
	▲	xp84 an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Macs have a native way to do dashes: option- hyphen for en-dash and option shift hyphen for em-dash. On Windows there are some application-specific ways that make sense, e.g. in Office, but outside that you’re on your own and have to use the “hold alt and type the character codes” method! Or charmap.

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brookst an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It’s fine to use em-dashes — just be srre to add typos.

	▲	falcor84 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		You can also have the em-dash itself be a typo, e.g. using the figure dash ‒ (U+2012) instead.

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998244353 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I now use "ASCII em-dashes" by using two hyphens -- like this. Or--if you prefer no spaces--like this.

	▲	rogerrogerr an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Nah, I’ve started noticing people doing this replacement automatically in LLM output. I just try not to write with dashes anymore.
	▲	0gs 23 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		the nn dash remains the goat. the arg dash

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VectorLock an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Code switching in the post LLM era.