Why the em dash is attracting unfair suspicion(theglobeandmail.com)
theglobeandmail.com
Why the em dash is attracting unfair suspicion
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article-em-dash-artificial-intelligence-punctuation-authorship/
36 comments
As a proficient writer who has been using proper grammar and em dashes for decades, it really makes me sad that writing with proper grammar and em dashes is now suspicious.
As someone who bothered to learn the keyboard shortcuts for the em dash and ellipsis, this makes me sad.
Even in posts not using these things, I’ve been accused of being an AI bot a few times now. I’m not sure what it is I’m doing that makes people think that. My natural reaction is to double down on whatever I was trying to explain, which seems to make things worse. Such is life…
Even in posts not using these things, I’ve been accused of being an AI bot a few times now. I’m not sure what it is I’m doing that makes people think that. My natural reaction is to double down on whatever I was trying to explain, which seems to make things worse. Such is life…
I used to secretly assume any comment on reddit that uses direction quotation marks ” “ vs " " are bot or AI generated. But I believe that's just how iOS does it?
I wish a comment being completely vapid or trollish were indicator enough.
I wish a comment being completely vapid or trollish were indicator enough.
You could just reserve your rancor for posts that are completely vapid or trollish — and ignore the issue of how they were created.
It works for me.
It works for me.
Bot content deserves all the derision trolls do.
The best solution for me is to touch grass daily.
The best solution for me is to touch grass daily.
I assume those are people who write their comments in MS Word and copy the text with its smart quotes.
Sorry, I wouldn't be caught dead using Word. I use quotation marks because that is the correct punctuation.
> that's just how iOS does it?
MacOS, too.
MacOS, too.
I have some blogs that make use of Markdown. " is automatically rendered as a ”. Likewise, "--" is rendered as an em dash.
On the osx keyboard layout (which you can use under linux):
“ < altgr + [
” < altgr + ]People are psychotic everywhere online and will accuse you of anything and everything if you're not 100% aligned with their views.
Even when you are, people are on average so paranoid and suspicious of random internet strangers with malintent that the concept of reading a response while assuming good intentions has been lost.
Yep — on mainstream AI YouTube videos, I see a lot of comment replies accusing anyone of commenting with ai (if its a well weitten post, with punctuation).
Others chiming in "ran through ai detector, says 37% human 63% air — BOT" etc
YT comments were never a good place, but it's interesting to see this shift now its hit the masses
And interesting that no ones commenting about the robotic AI voice over... Instead pointing finger's at each other like the spiderman meme.
YT comments were never a good place, but it's interesting to see this shift now its hit the masses
And interesting that no ones commenting about the robotic AI voice over... Instead pointing finger's at each other like the spiderman meme.
I’m not a YouTube commenter, so I don’t have a horse in this race, but it seems like Google is in a very good position to know if a commenter is AI or not. It is very likely that their YouTube account is tied to a Gmail account… they know if that’s being used by a person or not.
Google’s unwillingness to tackle the comment problems has been a problem for years, long before AI. I recall seeing some videos on some scripts a guy wrote to flag and filter spam and bots on YouTube comments. Something Google could and should have done a long time ago. If they have done anything at all recently, it’s been due to public shaming from top creators on the platform.
Google’s unwillingness to tackle the comment problems has been a problem for years, long before AI. I recall seeing some videos on some scripts a guy wrote to flag and filter spam and bots on YouTube comments. Something Google could and should have done a long time ago. If they have done anything at all recently, it’s been due to public shaming from top creators on the platform.
Very much so! I used to write responses online in the classic GPT formula with lots of bullets etc. and now I am deliberately ensuring that I don't over-formalize grammar so as to provide people with a little bit of confidence that I'm real... for what it's worth.
I used to spend a lot of time arguing online. Now, with Dead Internet Theory, it feels like it's just hammering home how useless that all was.
I used to spend a lot of time arguing online. Now, with Dead Internet Theory, it feels like it's just hammering home how useless that all was.
While I fully understand not wanting to argue things online when the dead internet theory has seemed to come true, I don’t think we should dumb ourselves down for it.
I also don’t think that will help. I saw an Odd Man Out video where humans and an AI were put into a box and they had to try and figure out who was the AI. If I remember correctly, the AI said it was purposely making some mistakes to better emulate a human.
We should seek to be better where AI falls, rather than sink to a level beneath AI and assume its superiority.
I also don’t think that will help. I saw an Odd Man Out video where humans and an AI were put into a box and they had to try and figure out who was the AI. If I remember correctly, the AI said it was purposely making some mistakes to better emulate a human.
We should seek to be better where AI falls, rather than sink to a level beneath AI and assume its superiority.
All those people on Reddit who never found "Shift" or "Enter" on their keyboard are laughing at us now.
> (Disclosure: The Globe and Mail style guide mandates the use of en dashes, which is why you won’t see em dashes used here.)
What does this mean? You can't use an en dash as a 'dash'. It's for specialized applications like saying 1994-1995 etc. I think the author (or whoever came up with this 'rule') is confused here
What does this mean? You can't use an en dash as a 'dash'. It's for specialized applications like saying 1994-1995 etc. I think the author (or whoever came up with this 'rule') is confused here
> You can't use an en dash as a 'dash'.
Actually you can, and it's relatively common.
One way—like this—is to use em dashes without surrounding spaces, to denote a pause.
The other way – like this – is to use en dashes with surrounding spaces. This functions like an em dash, but is technically an en dash. The linked article has dashes like this throughout. (Then you still use an en dash for numbers like 11–13, but without the spaces.)
It's just two different typographical conventions.
Edit: to be clear, these are both still different from hyphens. In typesetting, don't ever do this-or this - as hyphens are for, well, hyphenation.
Actually you can, and it's relatively common.
One way—like this—is to use em dashes without surrounding spaces, to denote a pause.
The other way – like this – is to use en dashes with surrounding spaces. This functions like an em dash, but is technically an en dash. The linked article has dashes like this throughout. (Then you still use an en dash for numbers like 11–13, but without the spaces.)
It's just two different typographical conventions.
Edit: to be clear, these are both still different from hyphens. In typesetting, don't ever do this-or this - as hyphens are for, well, hyphenation.
What most people think of as a hyphen (the key at the top-right of the keyboard) is actually a hyphen-minus (-, U+002D). Unicode has separate hyphen (‐, U+2010) and minus (−, U+2212) symbols, as well as a couple of others.
(If you want negative numbers to look right at small font sizes use a minus sign instead of hyphen-minus.)
(If you want negative numbers to look right at small font sizes use a minus sign instead of hyphen-minus.)
This is the way that I’ve been writing for years, mainly because I was too lazy to use the key or shortcut for em dash. But also because in school no one ever made a big deal about the length of the dash when writing - or I just wasn’t paying enough attention.
I myself prefer to use em dashes in this case, but spaced en dashes are an accepted alternative:
The Chicago Manual of Style §6.89 “En dash as em dash”
> In contemporary British usage, an en dash (with space before and after) is usually preferred to the em dash as punctuation in running text – like this – a practice that is followed by some non-British publications as well. See also 6.91.
The Elements of Typographic Style §5.2.1 “Use spaced en dashes…”
> Use spaced en dashes – rather than close-set em dashes or spaced hyphens – to set off phrases.
> […]
> In typescript, a double hyphen (--) is often used for a long dash. Double hyphens in a typeset document are a sure sign that the type was set by a typist, not a typographer. A typographer will use an em dash, three-quarter em, or en dash, depending on context or personal style. The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography. Used as a phrase marker – thus – the en dash is set with a normal word space either side.
The Chicago Manual of Style §6.89 “En dash as em dash”
> In contemporary British usage, an en dash (with space before and after) is usually preferred to the em dash as punctuation in running text – like this – a practice that is followed by some non-British publications as well. See also 6.91.
The Elements of Typographic Style §5.2.1 “Use spaced en dashes…”
> Use spaced en dashes – rather than close-set em dashes or spaced hyphens – to set off phrases.
> […]
> In typescript, a double hyphen (--) is often used for a long dash. Double hyphens in a typeset document are a sure sign that the type was set by a typist, not a typographer. A typographer will use an em dash, three-quarter em, or en dash, depending on context or personal style. The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography. Used as a phrase marker – thus – the en dash is set with a normal word space either side.
People are over-estimating the positive predictive value of the em dash.
If you run it through Bayes theorem, the increase in probability that a given text is AI-generated if it contains an em dash is negligible.
If you disagree share your prior, marginal, and likelihoods.
If you run it through Bayes theorem, the increase in probability that a given text is AI-generated if it contains an em dash is negligible.
If you disagree share your prior, marginal, and likelihoods.
Two things are true here. The em dash shouldn’t automatically be a sign of AI writing. That said, they’re also been quite overused in recent years, which is probably causing them to be overrepresented in models.
You shouldn’t have that many asides to squeeze in, and you don’t need a em dash to make a sentence punchy. All tricks lose their power if you come to depend on them too much.
You shouldn’t have that many asides to squeeze in, and you don’t need a em dash to make a sentence punchy. All tricks lose their power if you come to depend on them too much.
Last year, I had a writing contract for a popular blog. They required us to use the em dash. I bet they're regretting that now.
They really couldn't have used a single em dash in this article? Not even to demonstrate an em dash in a quotation?! Are violations of the The Globe and Mail style guide punishable by death?
People are reading a lot of AI generated text and adopting its format as well.
That’s a great point. Let me see if I can find a new way to word my reply—specifically, I will read through the comments above this, and consider other perspectives that might be relevant—and then try to answer your question again.
That’s a great point.
That’s a great point.
I have been using em dashes for over 20 years on my blog. This is just ridiculous…