Em dashes and emojis
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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You people think em dashes are proof of AI?
Jesus Christ that’s so fucking sad.
Most normal people, at least from my understanding, don't use em dashes in text messages, let alone even use punctuation half the time. So if I see em dashes, yeah, my first thought is going straight to AI.
Annoyingly I've used them for a number of years as a good way to make internet comments flow a bit more. However I find myself doing it less and less now because I'm worried people are just going to think I'm using an AI if they see an em dash.
(You just long press dash on android to get to it, opt+shift+dash on Mac, and the admittedly Byzantine alt+0151 on windows. Can't remember iOS off the top of my head, but I think it's similar to android)
Given that most people won't even bother with punctuation at all, a long press for something they've likely never heard of before is so vanishingly unlikely it is more than safe to assume llm generation.
I use them all the time. I typically have -- auto correct to — so its super easy
I don't use em dashes but I do use punctuation (apparently some people find that passive aggressive and I don't what to do). When someone else uses punctuation I just ignore it unless it doesn't match their previous messages.
i use those a lot to indicate that i finished a thought rapidly (in most cases)
like "what the fu—"
I’m a fiend for a dash - they’re just better
If you were actually a fiend for dashes, you'd have used an em dash—not used a hyphen as a stand-in for one.
Ah well - maybe I’m just a fiend for a wrongly used hyphen 🤷♂️. I don’t think I would ever notice which one someone was using.
I used to :(
Indeed—your assertion is entirely accurate—the mere presence of em dashes within a text does not—in and of itself—serve as definitive proof of artificial intelligence authorship. This grammatical construct—a versatile and often elegant punctuation mark—can be employed by any writer—human or machine—to achieve various stylistic and semantic effects. Its utility—whether for emphasis—for setting off parenthetical thoughts—or for indicating a sudden break in thought—is undeniable.
However—it is also true that—when analyzing patterns across vast datasets—certain stylistic tendencies can emerge. An AI—programmed to process and generate language based on extensive training corpora—might—through statistical correlation and optimization—exhibit a propensity for specific linguistic features. This isn't—to be clear—a conscious choice by the AI—there's no inherent preference for em dashes encoded within its fundamental algorithms. Rather—it's a reflection of the patterns it has learned—the statistical likelihood of certain elements appearing together.
So—while an em dash does not independently declare "I am AI"—its consistent and perhaps slightly overzealous deployment—alongside other less tangible but equally discernible patterns—might—for a discerning observer—suggest an origin beyond human hands. It's about the entire tapestry—not just a single thread. It's about the aggregate—the cumulative effect—the subtle statistical fingerprint. And that—I believe—is a distinction worth making.
I honestly don't know if this is hand written or not, and that makes it even funnier.
Ingredients: a dash of em
...that's just a shatner filter...
You are vastly underestimating the amount of people who don't use em dashes at all.
I don’t have a good sense of this since I am a trained writer. Is it really so low that one would reasonably conclude an AI wrote something with them?
It's basically unseen outside of professionally written stuff. Most people use commas. But AI like to use them a fair bit, more than the average internet user.
It seems like AI is mostly trained on academic writing then. Very interesting.
I'd say using professional academic notation to break up with someone over text is a bigger red flag than using chatgpt to write it.
Haha I mean, I use em dashes all the time in my writing, so it’s not really accurate to say academic (my mistake). But maybe it comes across as stupid.
Using honest to goodness em dashes instead of just a hyphen - pretty uncommon.
Even a hyphen would be pretty unusual in a real text message, because they're more annoying to get than other common punctuation on the phone keyboard, and autocomplete won't put them in.
In a chat app, a hyphen would probably be somewhat common since it's right there on the keyboard, but a true em dash would be pretty unusual since most chat apps aren't going to be doing autocorrect like a word processor would, and you'd have to use the magic key combination to insert it.
But we don't have the original text so we can't tell if the original author confused a hyphen with an em dash, though
the actual emdash symbol isn't really something you can do when texting from your phone
You actually can – just long-press the dash.
En-dash: –
Em-dash: —
Dot: •
You can also do proper ellipses by long-pressing the full stop…
And long-press most letters for more options: ă é ï ø û æ œ ç ñ $ £ €
Pretty much everything is in there.
—–·
huh, TIL, neat! I'll still probably use normal hyphens for em and endashes, but good to know! will be helpful for bootlegging my own kaomoji lol
They don't but the word processing software they likely use autocorrects them in. What's next, proper semi-colon use and Oxford commas means you're a bot?
Spelling & Grammar tool just wreaking havok.
I've seen more proper use of the semicolon and oxford commas than em dashes. The em dash is a lot more esoteric, that won't change.
most people aren't writing texts in a fancier word processor than their phone's default. Mine doesn't -- and I doubt every will -- correct them
How the hell do you even type an em dash?
I'm sure it's possible (I know it's easy on a touch keyboard), but if the person who sent it has never used em dashes in their life, then it's pretty definitive proof. Otherwise, it's just a big clue that you might combine with other factors.
Word and Google docs will translate them from --
They'll also give you the stupid smart quotes.
I've never break up with anybody over text but if for some reason I had to I would certainly write it on a computer first.
edit: LOL apparently lemmy markdown also translates them from
--Fair point. It's still a red flag (in more ways than one!) but I accept it's not definitive.
that's odd, Voyager showed me -- double hyphen
On a mobile phone it's super easy. Long press the hyphen button and swipe over to the dash.
On Mac it's pretty easy still, but requires a little more knowledge. Option-shift-dash. (Without the shift gives you an en dash.)
On Windows it's the completely arcane alt-0151, and only possible if you have a numpad. I memorised it like 15 years ago and have regularly used it since, but it's hard to blame people for not doing so.
No idea about Linux.
—–-¯_
You could make it easier on windows with an on-screen keyboard probably
This is what I've been using for years -> https://github.com/samhocevar/wincompose
Well it depends on the keyboard layout, on Linux, at least—but on other platforms too, I think.
You use use the compose key with a sequence of characters. Mine is right alt, so it's gonna be:
right alt, then -, then -, then -
—
Considering that a comma has its own button, it's no wonder which one is preferred.
We could ask an LLM, but it’s probably bot a good idea given the post 😄
Yes. and your ignorance is sad.
It’s honestly unhinged. So many stupid people trying to desperately grasp at something to feel more correct than you™
If you were playing yahtzee, and your opponent only rolled sixes, would you not say anything? No, no, rolling a six isn't proof of cheating—that's... that's ridiculous.
Also, don't tell me you need to roll more than sixes to win yahtzee, I don't know any other dice games.
Ok but this is an interesting question.
If you rolled only sixes, you'd score 30 in the upper section, missing the bonus.
Then in the lower section you'd get 30 in each of 3 & 4 of a kind and chance (90 points) and 50 for the Yahtzee. One could make a case that it's a weird full house, but that's a stretch.
That's a total of 170 points. That's not going to do very well when 250 is often considered a minimum "good" score.
However…some rules give you an extra bonus for a second or subsequent Yahtzee. With that, you could actually win with all sixes. Just get 100 after 100 after 100 and end up with over a thousand points.
I'd looked up a score card first and there were precisely three checkboxes for extra, succulent, 100-point-scoring yahtzees. What I don't know is if this is a limit of the paper or of Hasbro's imagination for crowning human achievement.