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10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

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Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#31

Post by askonomm »

hekkle wrote: post #30
keybored wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just less literate people feeling the need to out themselves.

It has nothing to do with literacy, the em-dash simply is not on the standard US QWERTY keyboard. This means that people who purposefully use it, either have to copy-paste it from somewhere or (if they-re on Windows), use "Alt + 0 1 5 1". This is very obviously not a natural behaviour that 'literate' people use when they write.

Many (most?) WYSIWYG editors automatically convert two hyphens (--) to em dash, no need to specifically look out for it.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#32

Post by sfRattan »

hekkle wrote: post #30
keybored wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just less literate people feeling the need to out themselves.

It has nothing to do with literacy, the em-dash simply is not on the standard US QWERTY keyboard. This means that people who purposefully use it, either have to copy-paste it from somewhere or (if they-re on Windows), use "Alt + 0 1 5 1". This is very obviously not a natural behaviour that 'literate' people use when they write.

If you're writing in MS Word, LibreOffice, or most word processors, typing a word and then two dashes and then a word, without any spaces, like--this will generate an em dash automatically. I learned how to do it in Freshman English in high school. Though I was also taught to double space after a period.

To revise GP's comment: it’s just less computer literate people feeling the need to out themselves.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#33

Post by phendrenad2 »

It seems like the author wants writing to be a bigger component of their life than it is. I hope the author is able to accomplish that goal. Maybe 100x their output and turn their blog into something a few people read. Hopefully the "20 years of writing a blog nobody reads" is a revelrous experience for the author's handful of readers.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#34

Post by wlesieutre »

hekkle wrote: post #30
keybored wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just less literate people feeling the need to out themselves.

It has nothing to do with literacy, the em-dash simply is not on the standard US QWERTY keyboard. This means that people who purposefully use it, either have to copy-paste it from somewhere or (if they-re on Windows), use "Alt + 0 1 5 1". This is very obviously not a natural behaviour that 'literate' people use when they write.

You can type "--" in most writing software and it will turn into an em-dash. On a Mac, this includes TextEdit by default, or literally every text input field if you enable the "smart dashes" setting. I can type — right now in my web browser with two presses on my ordinary laptop keyboard and no memorizing character ID numbers, not exactly rocket science.

If you're using Word or other fancy word processors, you don't even have to type two hyphens. One will do, and it looks at the grammar and changes to the correct type of dash for you automatically.

Have all the people parroting "dash means it was written by ChatGPT" never used a word processor?

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#35

Post by hekkle »

danadam wrote: post #28
hekkle wrote: post #21

[flagged]

I clicked on some random post from 2020, 19 em-dashes.

You do realise there are AI checkers online. https://www.zerogpt.com/ assesses this content as: 27.49% ChatGPT

While this writer obviously had a lot of input into the model, they even state (or more accurately according to zerogpt, ChatGPT wrote this whole paragraph) "The writing process should be highly iterative", so they have added their own flavour into the writing, but it is still, (probably not for much longer) but still obvious when this is used.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#36

Post by riazrizvi »

Writing a blog is like talking in the town square. Except because it’s digital, we seem to forget how communication works. If you just start talking in the town square, you’re standing alone talking. Sure a person who passes by might pause, but the odds you’re saying something really relevant to them are low, so they’ll move on.

The whole question of how you get in front of the right people and tweak your message based on their reactions, and then setup a routine so you have a dependable performance-audience, all seem to be lost on many folks.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#37

Post by ants_everywhere »

keybored wrote: post #25
namanyayg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a terrible side effect of AI that regular people using em dashes in honest writing are labelled as AI. I have a deep love for em and en dashes--you can see heavy usage in my writing that's 10 years older than chatgpt. My love for the dashes hasn't gone, but now I use a double dash instead so I am not immediately labelled as an AI.

It’s just less literate people feeling the need to out themselves.

It's not just less literate, it's also people who feel the need to be amateur prosecutors.

It's the same thing as judging people who wear their hair too long, or wear pajamas on the plane, or who wear pants that are too baggy, or who have children out of wedlock, etc. Some people are deeply convinced that society is on the decline and that they have a mission to ensure everyone else stays in line.

It's been that way throughout history.

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#39

Post by gerdesj »

namanyayg wrote: post #22
hekkle wrote: post #21

[flagged]

It's a terrible side effect of AI that regular people using em dashes in honest writing are labelled as AI. I have a deep love for em and en dashes--you can see heavy usage in my writing that's 10 years older than chatgpt. My love for the dashes hasn't gone, but now I use a double dash instead so I am not immediately labelled as an AI.

When you feel the need to dive in with a dash (m, n or otherwise), why not stop ... think for a while: consider going in with a colon instead?

Re: 10 years of writing a blog nobody reads

#40

Post by thwarted »

gerdesj wrote: post #39
namanyayg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a terrible side effect of AI that regular people using em dashes in honest writing are labelled as AI. I have a deep love for em and en dashes--you can see heavy usage in my writing that's 10 years older than chatgpt. My love for the dashes hasn't gone, but now I use a double dash instead so I am not immediately labelled as an AI.

When you feel the need to dive in with a dash (m, n or otherwise), why not stop ... think for a while: consider going in with a colon instead?

Emdashes are useful for an embedded appositive phrase, which a colon can't handle the same way.
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