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.

I propose that humans use Unicode U+2E3B three em dash ⸻ it is an impressively long character.

I'm still waiting for the interrabang to become compromised as well. They've already taken my em dash, and my use of the Oxford command, apparently, is an insant flag.

The thing is, in lots of contexts you cant easily type em dashes.

Google docs will convert “—-“ to an emdash but simple text inputs wont.

So when you see one in that context you have to consider the explanation. They copy pasted an em dash specifically, they drafted in Google docs, they know the unicode keyboard shortcut, etc. None of these are safe assumptions. And if it’s markdown you know it wasnt drafted in Google docs.

I still use them frequently. On iOS you just tap the hyphen twice, and it inserts an em dash—sorta like that.

I might like to see a collection of pre-2022 em-dash usage—a subset I suppose of the Low Background Steel category (https://lowbackgroundsteel.ai).

How many college kids are going to be flagged for using an em dash?

You completely misunderstanding the comment feels like an AI trigger

It’s so they don’t train on AI data, right?

The question is whether the m-dashes are surrounded by spaces or not. The spaces are utterly maddening. But yeah, RIP the mdash, who would have thought.