{"id":59081,"date":"2025-08-10T12:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T12:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/59081\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T12:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T12:13:07","slug":"why-the-em-dash-is-attracting-unfair-suspicion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/59081\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the em dash is attracting unfair suspicion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The em dash \u2013 literally the width of the metal block once used to print the letter \u201cM\u201d \u2013 is at the centre of a punctuation debate taking shape around authorship and artificial intelligence.The Globe and Mail\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

For centuries \u2013 or at least since the era of Virginia Woolf \u2013 the em dash has carved out a proud if unruly place in English prose. But now, for the crime of being favoured by writers for its many grammatical capabilities, the punctuation is being met with punishing stares.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the em dash \u2013 literally the width of the metal block once used to print the letter \u201cM\u201d \u2013 is alive and well. In fact, it\u2019s thriving to the degree that its sudden flood of appearances has become a telltale sign that an artificial intelligence platform such as ChatGPT may have written an e-mail, book or LinkedIn post. While writers have long turned to the em dash for dramatic flair or lively interruption, generative AI has taken that impulse and run with it \u2212 often in every other sentence.<\/p>\n

As the use of such apps has skyrocketed in recent months, warnings of so-called \u201cAI tells\u201d have spread across online forums and social media posts. More recently, however, those warnings have been met by a loud and proud contingent of em dash users. Writers on LinkedIn are talking confidently about \u201creclaiming the em dash,\u201d referring to it as \u201cour voice.\u201d Others are more plaintive: \u201cOriginal em dash users are having quite a hard time right now. I am one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sentiment underscores a tragic irony: Because writers use the em dash frequently, and because large language models such as ChatGPT are trained on vast amounts of human-written text where the punctuation appears with confidence, generative AI has learned to rely on it as a kind of catch-all \u2013 a shortcut that helps the model sound fluid and conversational without making harder stylistic or syntactic choices.<\/p>\n

Is AI dulling critical-thinking skills? As tech companies court students, educators weigh the risks<\/a><\/p>\n

The em dash is just one clue a robot may be holding the pen, but it\u2019s perhaps the most visible example of how AI is reshaping discourse around writing \u2013 and maybe even writing itself. The typewriter made sentences shorter. The word processor was more welcoming to sprawl. Now, AI is nudging writers toward a different rhythm: efficient, repetitive and oddly uniform. <\/p>\n

The em dash has done nothing wrong, but it has the unfortunate distinction of being a flashpoint for a new debate over what constitutes a human hand. <\/p>\n

(Disclosure: The Globe and Mail style guide mandates the use of en dashes, which is why you won\u2019t see em dashes used here.)<\/p>\n

For authors, the development of AI isn\u2019t in itself a threat. In many ways, the em dash is a representation of the technology\u2019s limitations.<\/p>\n

Anakana Schofield, an Irish-Canadian novelist whose 2015 work Martin John was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, said the preponderance of the punctuation is a clear example of how ChatGPT only knows what it has been told.<\/p>\n

Because large language models such as ChatGPT can only make predictions based on the massive quantities of text they\u2019re fed \u2013 sort of like autofill on steroids \u2013 they often produce grammatically pristine, structurally \u201ccorrect\u201d text. And that\u2019s boring.<\/p>\n

\u201cAI cannot invent,\u201d said Ms. Schofield, whose work was applauded for its \u201clinguistic games\u201d in a New York Times book review. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have an imaginative capacity.\u201d <\/p>\n

What Ms. Schofield values in her storytelling is the texture that comes from \u201cimperfection\u201d \u2013 erratic punctuation, experimental syntax, even failure. These are elements AI tends to smooth over.<\/p>\n

If everybody uses the same platform to write, \u201ceverybody will be in the middle,\u201d said Ms. Schofield, whose most recent work, Bina, centres on the inner thoughts of a righteously angry septuagenarian who dreams of being visited by a half-penguin David Bowie. \u201cThere won\u2019t be any glaring deficits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto-based author Craig Davidson, who also writes horror novels under the pseudonym Nick Cutter, said the future of fiction may hinge on the hunger for human creation. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is a clear difference \u2013 if readers can sense the human messiness and craft \u2013 then maybe there\u2019s still something to hold onto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Davidson, 50, whose pseudonymous novels conjure surreal, uncanny worlds that now feel eerily in step with the dreams and hallucinations of generative AI, said it will be a part of creative life \u201cregardless of what we think.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a battle that\u2019s going to be waged between people from that generation who really want to do things the goddamn old-fashioned way and those who say, \u2018Screw it. This is quicker. Easier. Bloodless.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Lai-Tze Fan, a researcher at the University of Waterloo whose work focuses on the socio-cultural dimensions of technology design \u2013 particularly in artificial intelligence \u2013 said the push of AI into publishing could represent an opportunity for humans to \u201cplay around\u201d with what writing means to them. If everything else is clean, in other words, it could be time to dig deeper into the dirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone\u2019s using ChatGPT \u2013 not even for essays, but just to compose e-mails or work documents \u2013 everyone starts to sound the same, and we start to question the authenticity of voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wikipedia editors, the internet\u2019s nerdy unsung heroes, keep the website one of the last best places online<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr. Fan, who has a background in the humanities, is a regular and unabashed user of em dashes. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all of a sudden I have all my students telling me I can\u2019t use an em dash any more because it makes me look like an AI,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I just have good grammar.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said it was troubling to hear students question the value of proofreading, fearing that a polished sentence \u2013 or liberal use of a certain punctuation mark \u2013 might be seen as evidence of AI.<\/p>\n

But even that anxiety, she said, isn\u2019t entirely new. Typewritten words aroused suspicions about a work\u2019s origin because readers couldn\u2019t see the author\u2019s handwriting. Writers feared they would lose their sense of identity.<\/p>\n

But those technologies also changed creative practices. The speed and standardization of the typewriter and the exact replication made possible with cameras directly spurred new art forms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith painting, we moved from realism to forms like cubism,\u201d Dr. Fan said. \u201cBecause what\u2019s the point of painting something perfectly if a camera can do it?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The em dash \u2013 literally the width of the metal block once used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,28501,61],"class_list":["post-59081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lf-gr","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}