I don’t know what I hate more: using AI to write, or people saying not to use em dashes because they appear in AI written copy.
The reason they’re saying this is because most people don’t know how to use a dash properly – and so when AI adds it to copy, it’s a possible tell.
There’s just one problem with this: namely that good writers and editors use dashes as well.
Read The New Yorker, for example, and you’ll notice the dash in every article. So should they suddenly stop using the dash just because AI has adopted it?
It’s a ridiculous argument.
Also ridiculous is the argument that using a dash is pompous and formal. After all, the opposite is the case: using the dash allows you to sound conversational, as it replicates the longer pause that we so often use in speech. And that’s what punctuation partly does: it reflects how our writing should be spoken.
Furthermore, in Australia we use the en dash – not the em. So if you are an Australian complaining about the dash, at least get it right (and you can find out more about the dash here).
If you know me at all, you’ll realise I don’t normally wade into arguments on grammar. I have stances on certain issues, such as the Oxford comma, but you won’t see me screaming about them. Yet a dash is so crucial to writing that saying you don’t need it is just too idiotic for me to ignore.
After all, would anyone think this article is written with AI simply because I use dashes? Of course not. Only people who already write in a cliched, generic way have anything to worry about: in which case, using dashes is the least of their problems.
