💖 —
If you love em dashes, this post's for you. 🤗
Friendly greetings and welcome!
If you’re here, you love em dashes — and are probably peeved about the AI false accusations. What follows is reassurance you’re not alone. Others like you continue to emdash and are NOT giving up their preferred punctuation… nor should you! What follows is some personal context and a comprehensive compilation of posts from diverse and insightful voices, united in our passion.
KEEP EMDASHING — AND CARRY ON.
What a surreal time to be alive — I have ONE reason that started me on using em dashes, and it's Stephen King’s The Dark Half. And now, left and right, there’s whack-a-mole accusing it of being the sign of AI. Hey, I get it, it’s a stressful time when you’re teaching class and you want to suss out cheaters, and when they’re using more em dashes than the King himself, something might be amiss. I entirely sympathize with the frustration and headaches that more than mere “computerized assistance” is being used to boondoggle your life’s work — you take it personally and want to ferret out the invaders.
Unfortunately, I’ve come across people who are clearly brilliant in other fields, but they don’t understand the mechanics of how LLMs work, and regard an abundance of em dashes with such misunderstanding/contempt/hostility that a productive convo with a hint of humor might be unlikely — but it’s worth a shot ‘cuz it’s only human, right? (I’m reminded of certain classical virtuosos looked down on electronic music but didn’t really get how that worked, either.)
This isn’t an article about those technical deets, but references them and beyond — a compilation of where we’re at now with em dashes, pointing to those who’re more well-informed than I on the matter with heapings of basic human common sense.
Once in a lifetime
I believe one of the saddest things about this whole em dash mess is how transient and short-lived it’s going to be. I say that with confidence, just like we had a “it’s AI because the person has six fingers” phase that went thru 2022-2023, and now that’s largely moot — and only those with now-retro image generators are deliberately Gattaca-ing it up. But in the meantime, I see how scared some em dash lovers are of using their fave punctuation, and HEY I SEE YOU! PLEASE DON’T STOP, KEEP USING THOSE EM DASHES — WITH PRIDE!
It’s bizarre when some of us feel like we gotta introduce more typos lol an erata into our work, to faux-messy it up -- y’know, like humans are messy creatures and all that, but it’s some additional affection artifice. If you aren’t being true to your instinctive style when writing, does that not deprive you of a unique voice? (Yes!)
I observe this carries parallels to early Photoshop lens flare and other visual FX that were badly overused, before reining them in — which is to say, if you’re just discovering em dashes via AI… you’re feeling things out and having fun, and you’ll hopefully and eventually graduate to using them in a more refined and subtle way, to where they serve your style. As someone I look up to said, we must crawl before we walk before we run. (And for you fellow Constant Readers — well, I’m here for ya.)
(Aside: I prefer spaces around em dashes due to word wrap, AP-style. Within the subcamps of even more pugnacious and precise punctuationalists, I realize some are purists and regard those spaces with disgust. This ain’t The Avengers vs. The New Avengerz, no civil war plz — at least for now, can we truce on the infighting and unite with our LOVE FOR EM DASHES?)
Humans were here first, and that’s why AI can even use em dashes in the first place. And misuse of such tools shouldn’t be the equivalent of “punctuation cancel culture” — I never thought I’d be typing about conspiracy theorists who fixate on em dashes, but here we are. It’s akin to looking for a literally needle-shaped thing and missing a whole haystack… of goodness! (To wildly paraphrase John Bogle.)
Part of the emdashphobia is due to the observable fact that it’s hard to “just do” on most modern computers, which points to a bigger systematic problem. Like if you’re just using regular hyphens, you’re missing out. While it’s a relative breeze on macOS & iOS, I’m well aware of Windows brethren who’ll gladly Alt+0151 all day. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE — a whole heaping of text enhancers like Grammarly and TextExpander that’ll turn your “--” into a fully unbroken “—”, how’s that for miracles? Even Google Docs will exchange your even-longer “---” for the full shebang. This isn’t even the first time — curly quotes have had similar previous moments, and see how they have relatively escaped unscathed. So, this whole “But ChatGPT…” is actually late to the party.
A list of em dash posts — enjoy!
"Em dashes are not a sign of AI usage. Some people just have ADHD and need to express interstitial thoughts a lot.” -Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano
Human memory is a funny thing. And it can be useful to chronicle what was happening during a given time period, because perception can shift drastically in hindsight. There are a growing number of posts out there that strive to educate on this unlikely-yet-heated issue which have inspired me, including:
2025-08-20 - The Ringer - Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes—Please
2025-07-31 - The Federalist - Just Because AI Uses The Em Dash Doesn’t Mean Real Writers Should Stop — “The real danger isn’t that AI can imitate our punctuation. It’s that we let fear dilute our voice.” YES! ✊
2025-07-17 - McSweeney’s - The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations by Greg Mania — Awesome — now read this in Matt Berry’s voice.
2025-07-17 - Substack - The Em Dash… by Phillip Slater — Please expand this poem into a storybook!
2025-07-16 - Reddit - The second worst thing about AI is the false accusations by prism_paradox — Remember, it’s other humans who’re dumping negative energy out there. It’s a damn shame that “writing well” gets torn down by people who don’t have proper grammatical sense, because it biases you into making HUMAN SLOP.
2025-07-12 - Reddit - Celebrating em-dashes—because we know we love them by Monstertaki
2025-07-09 - Reddit - AI & The Em Dash... by Mendokusai — I appreciate the curiosity here.
2025-07-09 - Substack - Short Thought: Em dashes, and the Great AI Self-Tell by Oli
2025-07-08 - The em dash panic by Gary McGath — No-nonsense approach.
2025-07-05 - Substack - The mystery of em-dashes: part two with quantitative evidence by Maria Sukhareva — Technical data dive into WHY AI “prefers” em dash. tl;dr AI is trained for short sentences, and “—” means less tokens than “and”. I discovered this via Folkert Stijnman’s summary.
2025-07-04 - Em Dash and AI: Writing Like a Human Is Now Suspicious? by Pedro Innecco — This tight ADHD perspective hits me in the feels. I didn’t even think about that earlier.
2025-07-04 - The Rise of the Em Dash — How AI is Changing Our Writing Style by Lisette De Jong-Schoots — Focus on personal stories.
2025-07-01 - Is my AI doppelgänger gaining sentience? by Stephanie Hayes — Hilariously witty.
2025-06-30 - Reddit - No, you can't "sense" whether a text was written by AI. by xeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenu — Translated from Polish, valuable for the non-USA perspective, related to how Asians get accused of being AI because of frequent emoji use — which originated from Japan — there are cultural differences worth being aware of!
2025-06-26 - Substack - We Must Not Cede the Em Dash! by Jacqueline Novak — A rip-roarin’ call to arms! That bit about “writing in a dead and robotic style” is eminently relatable.
2025-06-20 - The Em Dash Is Not the Problem by Joseph Mellors — “The problem is a scholarly culture still too often wedded to performance over substance—one where form is used to mask or elevate, rather than to express.”
2025-07-17 - In Defense of the Em Dash — A Beautiful Line of Thought ✍️ by Amedee — An autistic Dutch perspective: “In Dutch, the em dash is called a gedachtestreepje — literally, a thought dash.”
2025-05-28 - Reddit - Em-dashes ≠ ChatGPT by wonderabc — Delivered with clarity. Bonus bit with en-dashes too!
2025-05-19 - Reddit - Is ChatGPT ruining em dashes for autistic people? by Garden_Jolly
2025-05-15 - Reddit - To my dearest em dash by tealdroplets
2025-05-08 - In defense of the em dash by Tiffany Keaton
2025-05-05 - Substack - The Em Dash Is Not AI: On Neurodivergent Voice and the Policing of Online Language by Jaime Hoerricks, PhD — This made me more autistic re: “survival mechanism” — verily, I agree 💯.
2025-05-11 - Reddit - Em Dashes were not invented by AI by Random12022
2025-05-05 - Reddit - Em Dash Usage is Surging in Tech & Startup Subreddits by v4nn4 — I wonder how much of this is due to em dash awareness? See “lens flare” parallel above.
2025-05-03 - Substack - The Em Dash isn't an AI Fingerprint. You just Don't Understand Punctuation. by Jamaal Glenn — Sage points incl. “Can you REALLY tell if it’s AI?” and the relative absence of em dashes in an era of grammatical lossiness.
2025-05-02 - Reddit - How Serious is this Em Dash Thing? by amPennyfeather — Thoughtful discussion from writers with varied experiences.
2025-04-30 - Substack - Em Dash (as an AI Thing) by Nate Combs — That pithy quote from Laura Kennedy is a banger.
2025-07-15 - Medium - The Em Dash Dilemma: How a Punctuation Mark Became AI’s Stubborn Signature by Brent Csutoras
2025-04-09 - The Washington Post - Some people think AI writing has a tell — the em dash. Writers disagree. by Daniel Wu
2025-04-11 - Rolling Stone - Are Em Dashes Really a Sign of AI Writing? by Miles Klee
2025-04-16 - Reddit - “You used an em dash so this is clearly AI!” by Chaptive
2025-03-22 - Reddit - How did the em dash become the signature AI detection punctuation? by wawawaaaaawa
2025-03-16 - Reddit - Stop accusing people of being AI just because they use em dashes! by TheMysteryCheese
2025-01-10 - LinkedIn - No, the em dash is NOT a sign of ChatGPT — you just haven't been writing long enough to recognize the trend. by Matthew Proctor — Great reverse-chronological insight.
2025-01-10 - LinkedIn - Em dashes are suddenly soooo controversial. by Nicole Leffer
2025-01-07 - Reddit - Another random data point in failure to identify AI by Tyler_Zoro
2019-08-23 - The em dash is a bit of a jerk — replace it whenever possible by Josh Bernoff — This pre-AI view, in full Stephen King style, seems quaint now. Thanks Mikhael_Love for sharing!
I compiled this because I’m obsessed with the issue. But I hope it’ll be of use to you too, whether you want to learn or share, because helping each other is one of the most human things we can do, right? 😊
If you have any notable quotables you want added to the list, please comment or otherwise reach out to me, and I’ll update accordingly.
And if you enjoyed this, please share!
As a former journalist and someone who uses APA and Chicago styles in my editing work, I am on the side of no spaces on the ends of em-dashes. Same for en-dashes. I'm also a convert to the serial comma, which I adamantly opposed previously, because it is standard in these academic styles. In regard to how to recognize something written by AI, I think it's more useful not to focus on mechanics like punctuation (I've always loved dashes) or even those "it's not this, but it's that" structures or other things recognized as AI patterns To me, the writing done by AI is flat. It lacks a human spark—a soul, if you will. it can sound very eloquent in the turns of phrase that it has plagiarized from wherever it learned them, but there's still a sense of something missing. A deadness, almost. No matter how well large language models learn to imitate human speech, they will never be able to imitate the human spark of creativity.
It's not em dashes that are the problem. It's writing that signals low-value.
^ and there I borrowed on a low-value (rhetorically effective) turn of phrase that's become ubiquitous with AI.
As with every type of communication, the way things are expressed influences how they are received. What is the point of communicating if how you communicate costs you your audience?
An important question.
I am a long-time em dash user and professional content creator. I don't like how em dashes are currently en vogue as a signal of AI because I know there's so much great writing (some of the best writing) that uses em dashes. I believe, though, that soon people will be looking for other Patterns (like my use of "It's not X. It's Y").
A thoughtful post. Thank you for sharing.