To be fed the em dash being conflated with AI?

[MyWarmOchreHare]

I’ve always used it, although usually just in dash format for the sake of ease. It comes as easily as full stops and commas.

Why is everyone just now discovering it? I’ve just completed a job application and went and edited my dashes out in case they followed this trend of thinking it indicates AI.

It’s actually genuinely really annoying me that people who have lived under rocks or who’ve never written anything since school are accusing people who’ve got a reasonable grasp of English of being AI.

Although it makes startlingly normal the, what I thought at the time was very strange, episode where I’d written something for a colleague and he asked ‘what are all those dashes for?’

We went to the same school and he’s only five years younger.

It’s beyond annoying. Lots of us know how to and regularly do use an em dash. It’s more astounding that so many people think it’s unusual.

Some are perfect personal statement hitting every keyword with no CV experience whatsoever. Otherwise it's the use of overly professional and flowery sentences which I read across different peoples' applications. They all say the same thing in the same way. I don't mean parroting the job spec back.

Even had one with ChatGPT prompts pasted in and the answer!

I recruited recently and didn't pick up it was AI the first couple of cover letters I read but once I had read the same thing over and over it was clear. Same starting phrases, same dot point structure covering key criteria. Way too wordy. Out of 100 or so applicants the few that weren't AI really stood out.

Surely they all have different examples though, even if they are AI?

You’d be surprised. When I’m marking essays, there’s a ‘same-iness’ to the AI-generated ones. They lack soul and personality: there’s no distinctive individual voice to them. I’ve been teaching for a long time, and the sudden advent of essays written by ChatGPT is really disconcerting. Not only is it hugely concerning in terms of the impact on critical thinking skills and academic integrity but it’s incredibly disheartening to see all these students thinking they’ve done something really clever in using Chat when all it’s done is made their work depressingly mediocre.

Why would you not at the very least look at what AI can offer? I find it hard to believe you're a journalist who hasn't used it!

Just done some reading because I was doubting myself. En and em dashes have different uses, so I'm going to stick with the em-dash.

They aren't word for word identical but it's very obvious. Possibly some of the few that I thought weren't AI did have AI input with better prompt engineering but I'm sure that the AI ones were AI generated. Try recruiting and you'll see what I mean!

I had no idea there was such a thing as an en dash or an em dash.

I just use a dash but it's not something I use frequently.

Take them out. We don’t use them in UK English and your copy editor will thank you.

Just found them on the keyboard. Always learning something new!

Hyphen -
En dash –
Em dash —
Double en dash ––

As someone whose OU tutor always corrected dashes to commas, I feel I want to start using dashes again🥳

I mark essays too. I would say I can spot bad prompting and editing. I think once the students are savvy with prompting the essay is officially dead.

I was educated in the UK and have never heard the term em dash or n dash

we know it’s AI if there is an em dash in a text because a phone won’t generate it. my ex did this and had no explanation.

similarly as Word auto generates en dashes from hyphens with spaces around them, en dashes are frequently used but not em dashes in the UK. the point is you'd have to work to get them.

I have a colleague who does use em dashes but it’s because he drafts legislation. If you go and read some of it you’ll see em dashes galore.

I’m a copywriter and the business I work for has had an influx of clients over the past 6 months claiming that our copy is AI because we use em dashes 🙄 My boss told them to put the copy into an AI detector and it all came back human, but clients still weren’t happy. In the end, my boss has just said we’re not to use em dashes anymore - it’s not worth the hassle.

Me too, maybe I'm too old at 53 😂

I’ve also never heard the term em dash, but I format books for a small publishing company and I’m sorry but I take them all out as I think they look unsightly and sometimes make it tricky to fit things on a page correctly. See also double spaces after a full stop.

Hyphens and dashes is what I’ve always called them btw.

Me too. Is all this em and en dash stuff American so that's why I've never heard of it?

Hmm. They're used by UK authors in genre fiction. J K Rowling, Prachett, Pullman, Tolkien, Samantha Shanon.

I had a poem longlisted and flash fiction published and I had them in there.

I'll ask this at my next agent 1 2 1.

I’ve not read all of those writers; I write and edit commercial women’s fiction.

However I just had a look in a Harry Potter and while JKR loves a dash, they’re definitely all en-dashes.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Is this a question on University Challenge? Lol

I have never heard of em or en dash and honestly do not see the need for it.

They're just printers' terms for dashes of different widths. An M is wider than an N, hence an em dash is wider than an en dash. Grammatically, the two types are the same. Publishers use different style conventions, and US publishers generally prefer the em dash with no spaces around it, while UK ones like a spaced en.

You can also have em spaces (extra wide) and en spaces, though they're not much used any more. I think this all dates back to the olden days of metal typesetting.

It is annoying and I’ve asked my team not to use em dashes if they’re sending out external comms now for this reason, I.e. people we assume we’re using IA!

It's not so much the em dashes themselves (although they are a tell) - it's the way ChatGPT uses them like it's writing a peppy, salesy LinkedIn post.

This is from ChatGPT:

Personalize like a pro—use data to serve the right offer at the right time. Build trust with killer reviews, fast shipping, and rock-solid support. Your brand isn’t just a store; it’s an experience—make every click count. 💥

It's inorganic, the way it always ends in a "you're not just a star -- you're a superstar" type sentence.