A wild theory is spreading over the Internet that if you see em dashes, you’re seeing something generated by a computer. This method of telling robots from humans is fast, simple — and worthless. I even saw the claim on a Metatron video on YouTube, and I normally consider him pretty reliable.
It’s claimed no human knows how to type an em dash. Let me reveal it to the whole world, then. On a Mac, it’s option-shift-hyphen.
I went looking for a good article on using the dash, but everything I found was a dull tutorial at best, and some seemed to be written by AI. This article from San Jose State is one of the better ones.
You can use dashes where you’d otherwise use commas or parentheses but want to set the text off more strongly. You can use it for emphasis: “The president — who is supposed to uphold the Constitution — …” Or for contrast, as in the first paragraph of this post. Or to set an explanatory phrase off strongly: “Ishmael — the only survivor of the voyage — tells the story of Moby Dick.”
I always use the em dash and really don’t know where to use an en dash. If I’ve ever used the en dash, it was probably by accident.
Checking my own blog:
I quoted Florida’s governor as using them: “You drive off and hit one of these people — that’s their fault for impinging on you.” He’s been accused of many things, but being a bot isn’t one of them.
Donald Trump, or at least the news source I pasted from, has used them too: “I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs — that’s 11 years old — needs to have 30 dolls.” I used dashes myself in the same post: “He has endorsed the use of ‘economic force’ — closing off trade and maybe access to ports — to make Ottawa surrender.”
A comment on another post used a dash: “Yes, you need a plan to get out of the hole too — but that shouldn’t block you from stopping the thing that’s making it worse.” I know the person who posted that comment. She isn’t a piece of AI software, and it’s extremely unlikely she’d use one to compose a comment.
Please don’t spread the nonsensical theory that dashes equal AI.
En dashes are used to denote a range, whether it’s a reading assignment that covers pages 36-97 or a time period covering 1935-2012. I’m on my phone and don’t know how to make it do an en dash, and I’m too tired to look it up right now.
Thanks. That’s why you’re a paid copy editor and I’m not. :)
Now, if it were unspaced em-dashs, it may be a bot. Grammarly seems to insist that em-dashes should not have spaces surrounding them….
Grammarly isn’t exactly a bot, but most bots use what they consider correct grammar. When they’re wrong, they’re wrong.
No bot was intentionally used in the production of this comment, but I didn’t turn off automisspell.
Gary! It’s ridonkulous (and a modern-day conspiracies theory) indeed. I like your pithy, no-nonsense approach to this, it kind of reminded of Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes. You and me are both devotees of that Mac shortcut — and if you use Apple’s own text substitutions, it’ll transform “–“. Anyhoo, you might like this ???? EM DASH LOVERS compilation which I’ve added your post to: https://torley.substack.com/p/–