I refuse to care about this. A single dash is all I will ever use. I see no possible reason to use the other two.
How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
91–100 of 492 posts
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#92AFAIK 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.
This test feels biased by the fact that, like others have said, macOS provides keyboard shortcuts. For example, I'm only Gen Z and yet have tried for many years to use the proper dash characters in the right places, which is made much easier by virtue of being on a Mac. Of course, I guess it's entirely possible—even accounting for OS—that this test remains statistically useful. It makes me kinda sad that my (very muc…
On iPhone, type two hyphens to make an em dash:
-- into —
If OP wrote their post on an iPhone, they would have inadvertently appeared as an LLM by their own test.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#93Note also that the "hyphen" on your keyboard is actually a "hyphen-minus". Unicode provides separate characters for hyphen (‐) and minus (−).
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
The default US English Mac keyboard is so extremely good, and has been the way it is for so long, that I remain baffled that other platforms haven't simply copied it. I came to it relatively late in life and it's one of the reasons I wish I'd started using Macs sooner.
It's pretty decent but the fact that I can't type an arbitrary unicode character has been a huge annoyance of mine since I switched from Windows/WSL to Mac. They have shortcuts for Í, Î, and Ï but not for many commonly used characters like arrows
Control+Command+Space or Fn+E or Edit > Emoji & Symbols if you know the character’s name. It’s not very convenient for repeated use, but it gets the job done in a pinch.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#95Let's not forget the minus symbol at U2212. I was making a Simulink like diagram editor and the dashes just didn't look good. 2212 worked nicely.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#96AFAIK 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.
This test feels biased by the fact that, like others have said, macOS provides keyboard shortcuts. For example, I'm only Gen Z and yet have tried for many years to use the proper dash characters in the right places, which is made much easier by virtue of being on a Mac. Of course, I guess it's entirely possible—even accounting for OS—that this test remains statistically useful. It makes me kinda sad that my (very muc…
That has nothing to do with being on a Mac. Em-dashes and the compose-key work fine on Linux, and Android has them under the '-' of the on-screen keyboard when long-pressed.
(Windows probably has some way, but those are rarely discoverable.)
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#97Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#98Somewhat off topic, however, I'm thoroughly convinced that there is a very high probability something is AI generated when I see Em dashes. Anyone else noticing this? ChatGPT for example almost always uses them. I'm sure they are more common in academic writing, but its now super common on boards like Reddit.
I’ve noticed this, too. ChatGPT especially overuses them relative to other models. It’s an easy tell-sign that something is probably LLM-written.
I saw a reel the other day where some Young People(tm) were talking about "the ChatGPT hyphen" (an em-dash.) There was much wailing and gnashing of (false) teeth from Old People(tm) in the comments.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
This test feels biased by the fact that, like others have said, macOS provides keyboard shortcuts. For example, I'm only Gen Z and yet have tried for many years to use the proper dash characters in the right places, which is made much easier by virtue of being on a Mac. Of course, I guess it's entirely possible—even accounting for OS—that this test remains statistically useful. It makes me kinda sad that my (very muc…
That has nothing to do with being on a Mac. Em-dashes and the compose-key work fine on Linux, and Android has them under the '-' of the on-screen keyboard when long-pressed. (Windows probably has some way, but those are rarely discoverable.)
That's true, I do use them a lot on iOS as well—similarly, it's a long-press on '-' to get an en or em dash.
Re: How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
#100AFAIK 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.
"Windows" + "." brings up symbols, and at the very top were em dashes. I've been using that since it was added.
On my Linux laptop, I confess to manually Googling them every time.