For the Love of Em Dash

In the previous post, you read how long I struggled with the little demon of whether to be polite or to be literate.

When I finally thought I left the worries behind along with the Croatian language world, there came ChatGPT and brought along the same old circus with a whole new bunch of monkeys.

For months – or even years – now, there has been a heated debate about em dashes being a telltale of ChatGPT’s writing.

Yes, but – em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens are constituent parts of the English (and many other) language(s), and if you know the language well, well… then it’s kinda impossible not to know about their existence.

In case you’ve somehow missed the discussion, I’ll write down the most relevant and interesting – at least, for me – details, so read on the parts which spark your curiosity.

What History Thinks

The notorious em dash got its name from typography due to its width, which is more or less the size of a capital M. The same can be said for its less infamous buddy – the en dash – which is the width of an N, obviously.

This all dates back to the old printing tradition, and even the works of Shakespeare used dashes to mark pauses and interruptions.

Today, especially in English, em dashes have myriad uses, from denoting commas, parentheses, or colons to mark breaks, interruptions, or ellipses.

They are more often found in American English, without spaces, while British English prefers en dashes, with spaces.

Throughout history, there have been different instructions on how to use the em dash properly, and you see in the Faculty Lounge that even in 2010, the proper use stirred up The Em Dash Controversy.

For detailed information on this whole section, check out these articles from Merriam-Webster, Grammarly, or Proofed.

What Authors Think

Style-wise, em dashes are more common in all sorts of informal texts than in academic, most often seen and found in journalism and fiction.

Throughout history, em dashes were a punctuation of choice for many renowned authors.

The most prominent among them is probably Emily Dickinson, whose prolific writing is infused with em dashes as her personal signature.

We can also add Jane Austen to the list, Charles Dickens (for example, A Tale of Two Cities), and let us not forget the work of Virginia Woolf (including Mrs. Dalloway), and James Joyce, who even used em dashes for dialogues in his Ulysses.

Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita, took things even further and enclosed em dashes – within em dashes, and in most recent times, even the King of Horror, Stephen King, has not been immune to the charms of the em dash.

But it’s not just about the most notable authors – the Internet is full of all sorts of writers, journalists, and bloggers praising the em dash.

Back in 2016, The Michigan Daily published a post by Alexis Nowicki titled “Copy That: A Love Letter to the Em Dash.” In 2021, James Scott Bell wrote “The Em Dash and I—A Love Story,” for the Kill Zone Blog, while Sky Kapoor admitted “I’m obsessed with em dashes and love metaphors. I challenged myself to stop using them” for The Varsity.

On Medium, in 2017, Joseph Symeon Price wrote a piece “In Praise of the Em Dash,” and in April 2022, Clive Thompson wrote his called “In Defense of the Em Dash,” foreshadowing the future that was about to become our reality only a few months later.

What ChatGPT Thinks

If you have ever worked with ChatGPT or a similar technology, you have probably noticed that it has a sweet spot for em dashes, which has turned on alarm that using em dashes is a telltale sign of AI generated text, with critics even calling the em dash the “ChatGPT hyphen.”

While it’s true that AI-generated text exhibits a prolific use of em dashes, sadly, other than having a data-informed spot, ChatGPT doesn’t have a soft spot for any punctuation mark.

It was trained on a vast number of sources, and its use only reflects its predictive nature. If em dashes are used extensively throughout its output, then that’s because they were used extensively throughout its input. And they were used extensively throughout its input because some of the most educated and the most renowned authors of all time have favored the dash – or if you wish, had a soft spot for it – and then inspired new generations to come with their infatuation.

What Authors Think, Still

If history (of literature) has taught us anything, it’s that authors will always find the(ir perfect little) way to stand their ground.

Perhaps The Washington Post has summed it up the best in its article “Some people think AI writing has a tell — the em dash. Writers disagree.”

The article ends with the quote from Moniza Hossain, a children’s author based in Britain, who jokingly admits that “AI robbed the em dash from (her),” as “she caught herself reframing from using em dashes in a recent proposal she wrote for a new novel, she said – she didn’t want an editor to suspect her pitch was AI-generated.”

The same or similar concerns have been discussed in a plethora of other articles across the web and well… the globe itself.

The US Rolling Stone magazine contemplates “Are Em Dashes Really a Sign of AI Writing?,” while Stryng, a Croatian-based AI content creation platform, offers a bit different view on the matter in their blog post “AI’s Em Dash Obsession: A Love Story Gone Too Far.”

Some are taking things even further, like US Salon raising really important questions with “AI can’t have my em dash,” their reflective piece on being a writer and being a technology user. A bit more personal view, tackling the same issue, but from somewhat different angle, can be found in India Today’s “ChatGPT, crisis of em dash, and please leave our beloved punctuation alone.”

Yet perhaps the most “authorly” ingenious way to combat the em dash hype is that seen in Christina’s Garnett X post:

This is further discussed in a post by Matt Ziegler in Cultish Creative, “Long Live The Em Dash (And Emily Dickinson)” that perhaps offers the most universally human conclusion ever:

Just communicate well and make art worthy of sharing.

What I Think

Personally, I’ve always preferred the en dash, but that’s probably because I’ve also used British English. When I officially left the language world, I somewhat switched to American English, yet the en dash lingered on.

I figured that would be my last, final step.

Then ChatGPT greeted the world and brought along the old wound of feeling wrong for being right but generally being personally more vested in the topic than an average person.

So in a way, I’m in a limbo now. Using the en dash for the em dash, completely unsure where the wind will sway me. Let’s call it my own personal quirk. Plus, if the occasion ever arises, I have to have something to push the buttons of the potential proofreader of my texts. Proofreaders simply love that. (A joke – it was a joke!)

I linger in this state of uncertainty because, on the one hand, I know I should switch to the delightfully dark side of the em dash, but on the other, I really don’t wish to be at the receiving end of finger-pointing. I’ve already had way too much of that.

Then again, in all fairness – why should I feel bad about it? Anyone who knows anything about punctuation knows that a single em dash carries the power to say everything without actually saying anything. Why would anyone give up on that? Not only that, the em dash surpasses the dry rules of prescriptiveness – it’s not punctuation, it’s a feeling. A warm and fuzzy one, for that matter.

Plus, the idea that somebody would call it a “ChatGPT hyphen” is preposterous. More than that, it vividly illustrates the state of the education system today.

Sure, some people use ChatGPT and overuse it. But some other people overuse it without the help of ChatGPT.

So, here’s a wild thought – maybe we should learn something new. If we don’t like the dash, why don’t we simply remove it, and move on? Perhaps we should also learn how to write without with by using appropriate prompts if we’re into AI tools, or even how to write – in our own style, without any tools?

There is a myriad of well-written texts that have not sprung out of ChatGPT, with a few good reads referenced here.

And while we’re at it, we may also check out the vocabulary em-dash enthusiasts use. Because, in the next post, we’ll move forward with this debate by examining their prowess. Yes – prowess!

And in the meantime… Let’s leave them dashes alone, shall we?

How many times have you seen the em dash lately?

Get in touch & let us know.

If you’ve ever been told you write too formally, too informally, or too “ChatGPTly”, share this post because—