Em Dashes and Other False AI Clues

By Ronnie Blair

The em dash would seem to be an innocent enough punctuation mark, doing its job without asking anything in return and never displaying jealousy of the comma or the period, whose services are called on more often.

But of late the em dash has become the unfair target of torch-bearing zealots who insist that any writer who uses an em dash might as well have confessed to allowing ChatGPT to do their work for them.

An em dash—these punctuation witch hunters insist—is proof positive that AI is involved because no human writer would ever use an em dash. Not once. Ever.

This is unsettling news for many reasons, not the least of which is that the first chapter of Moby-Dick has two or three dozen em dashes, putting Herman Melville and his prose (if it is in fact his prose) under scrutiny. Sadly, the man is no longer around to defend himself, but the em dash police have many questions.

In addition to littering Moby-Dick with those em dashes, did AI also come up with the name Ahab? Did Melville do any revisions at all after ChatGPT spit out "Call me Ishmael" and the thousands of words that followed? Or did Melville just go with whatever the AI fed him, possessing the skills to do the work himself but mumbling under his breath, “I would prefer not to”?

It’s all so unsavory, Herman.

The em dash isn’t the only victim of AI suspicions. Those who claim to know AI when they see it have a long list of words they insist are clear indicators of a robot writer at work, such as "navigate," "delve," and “tapestry.” (We’re looking at you, Carole King.)

There are also phrasings ("In a world where...") or writing conventions (the rule of three) that raise the eyebrows of the AI detectives.

It's enough to make you just shelve this whole idea of writing altogether. AI is cornering the market on punctuation, phrasings, prose devices, and, it would seem, eventually the entire Merriam-Webster dictionary, leaving human writers with nothing in their arsenal except perhaps one lonely hyphen and the word “the.”

Hatred toward em dashes picked up in recent months on LinkedIn, where person after person has taken a turn at exposing the time-honored punctuation. Some of these people were clearly unfamiliar with this poor dash that has drawn their ire. The first time I saw a post on the topic, several months ago, the em dash was referred to as a “long hyphen.” Why does ChatGPT use these long hyphens, this poster wondered. Someone else claimed that ChatGPT invented the em dash. Yet another person allowed that em dashes existed prior to AI, but insisted that no one had used them—until now.

Others graciously acknowledged that the em dash has long existed and that writers used it, but they are convinced ChatGPT is causing it to be used more often—so would everyone please exterminate it from their writing like the pest it is.

I don't think the em dash is appearing more often. Nor do I think it is indicative of AI writing. Instead, I suspect that those decrying the em dash are victims of two cognitive biases—frequency illusion and recency illusion. Frequency illusion is where someone learns a word or concept that is new to them, and suddenly they start noticing it everywhere. Somewhat similarly, recency illusion is the belief that just because you recently noticed something, it is in fact recent.

As Herman Melville would tell you, the em dash is in fact not recent.

Are em dashes sacrosanct? Of course not. If you don’t want to use them, don’t use them. And let’s even agree that some phrasings ChatGPT has stolen from human writers, such as “in a world where,” are hackneyed and best avoided for reasons other than accusations of AI use.

But we also should ask ourselves this: How many words, punctuation marks, and writing conventions are we willing to surrender to dodge the AI accusation? For me the answer is few because if we capitulate, AI is taking as much control of our writing as it would if we actually wrote with it.

In a world where writers need to navigate AI detectors—and the humans who think they are AI detectors—let’s be bold enough to delve into whatever words, phrases, and punctuation we need to achieve our writing goals so we can create a rich tapestry of language.

Em dashes forever!

Ronnie Blair is the author of the memoir Eisenhower Babies: Growing Up on Moonshots, Comic Books, and Black-and-White TV.