How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
merriam-webster.com
How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
1–10 of 492 posts
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#2Dupe—https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43447819 ("How to use an en-dash and em-dash correctly?", 43 comments)
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#3AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: --
Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#4AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: -- Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.
Alt+hyphen or alt+shift+hyphen is an endash/emdash. You may not have been aware of it because it's so subtle, but many people (including myself) used emdashes long before 2022
(edit: apparently only on Mac, see reply below)
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#5AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: -- Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.
On Macs:
Hyphen -: -
En Dash –: alt -
Em Dash —: alt shift -
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#6AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: -- Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.
Alt+hyphen or alt+shift+hyphen is an endash/emdash. You may not have been aware of it because it's so subtle, but many people (including myself) used emdashes long before 2022 (edit: apparently only on Mac, see reply below)
I believe that's only on MacOS.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alt+hyphen or alt+shift+hyphen is an endash/emdash. You may not have been aware of it because it's so subtle, but many people (including myself) used emdashes long before 2022 (edit: apparently only on Mac, see reply below)
I believe that's only on MacOS.
Seems like you're correct. Interesting!
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#8AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: -- Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.
The engineers of various AIs are probably reading your comment and making adjustments.
Or we are both just AIs, as a portion of HN comments are, commenting back and forth about other AIs.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#9AFAIK most computer keyboards don't have em dashes. Rather than hit ALT+0151 every time, I've always just strung along two hyphens, like: -- Absolutely proper and correct use of em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens is, to me, the most obvious tell of the LLM writer. In fact, I think that you can use it to date internet writing in general. For it seems to me that real em dashes were uncommon pre-2022.
Most obvious tell of the former/current Stripe employee, imho.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#10If you're on Windows, install PowerToys, and check out the KeyBoard manager. It lets you set up shortcuts. I overload my keys using right alt for greek letters. (science stuff). Could do it for these dashes as well.