alt Hacker NewsI 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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I don’t give a flying fuck what people think. Most colleges copied or adopted my (for a few semesters) school’s style guide, so LLMs are essentially copying me, and I won’t change my punctuation usage because they suck.
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.
I now use "ASCII em-dashes" by using two hyphens -- like this. Or--if you prefer no spaces--like this.
Code switching in the post LLM era.
I'm a secret invisible ­ soft hypenator. I like to break words in whacky places that change their meaning only when they need to be broken. Like Democ­rats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_hyphen
It's a perverted expression of hidden passive aggression.
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.
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.