Why the em dash is attracting unfair suspicion
theglobeandmail.com
theglobeandmail.com
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 wish a comment being completely vapid or trollish were indicator enough.
It works for me.
The best solution for me is to touch grass daily.
MacOS, too.
“ < altgr + [
” < altgr + ]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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
- < key between 0 and =
– < en-dash [compose] [-] [-] [.]
— < em-dash [compose] [-] [-] [-](If you want negative numbers to look right at small font sizes use a minus sign instead of hyphen-minus.)
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.
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.
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.
That’s a great point.