A year ago, I learned from my friend Watts Martin that according to LinkedIn know nothings influencers, the use of em-dashes is a sure sign of AI generated text. Real people, they said, use hyphens so whenever you see an em-dash, you can be sure that the text was written by an AI. Martin and I had a good laugh and largely moved on.
A couple of weeks ago, Martin published a post about the use of AI in writing. Martin is a tech writer and a published SF author so this is an area he knows and cares about. One of the points he emphasizes is that by definition text generated by AI represents average writing.
If you do any sort of professional writing, you should give Martin’s post a look. If you care about good writing, you should give Martin’s post a look. Even if you don’t fall into either of those cohorts, there’s a lesson for you in the post.
As I was reading his post it popped into my mind that if AI produces definitionally average text and if AI generated text uses em-dashes, then those who don’t use em-dashes must be below average writers.
Okay, it’s not quite a syllogism and the conclusion is, in any event, self evident but it’s another indication of how silly this movement to avoid using em-dashes—lest you be accused of having AI doing your writing—is. Good writers aren’t afraid to use em-dashes. Probably some good writers don’t use them at all—Irreal, of course, doesn’t understand how this could be—but lots do and it’s probably safe to say that those who do are showing that they care about their writing..
So, again, use em-dashes as you see fit and tell the naysayers to go pound sand.