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Em dashes are amazing

psychotechnology.substack.com

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Re: Em dashes are amazing

#51

Post by dxdm »

jdw64 wrote: post #2

I feel like people only look at the form and ignore the substance of the content. Honestly, as long as the content itself is well written and the em-dash is used correctly, I don't think it really matters. When I first learned about em-dashes, I was told they were a mark of sophisticated, intellectual writing. But now people say they sound like AI. Is that really a bad thing? It's strange to see sophistication become…

As of recently, there is a strong correlation between use of em-dashes and a verbose, bloated style of writing that uses many words to not quite get to multiple repeated points. Not well written, in other words.

The combination of both I usually find in text generated for me by LLM, and so far, it serves as a good signal for density of information and, inversely, not-quite-right ideas and their connections. (That's not to say it's pervasive, but below the surface, the quality of LLM text as a medium is often not great.)

There may be well-written text of non-trivial length generated by LLMs, but so far I haven't knowingly encountered any, with or without em-dashes. Human editing remains very necessary.

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#52

Post by thfuran »

url00 wrote: post #23
koolala wrote: post #12

Test: 'There is no greater joy in life than typing a sentence, realising it needs a clarification, a caveat, an addendum, but in the same sentence, not a new one, and, guess what, the comma is right there for you. You want to package things neatly together, and the comma lets you do exactly this. Commas make writing feel like you are assembling lego bricks.' I like using commas for spacing though em dashes do the sam…

It's a bit like 2 space indention versus 4 or 8 space. I find the em-dash example pretty compelling because visually relaxes my eye more than commas do — similar to how prefer at least 4 space indention over 2. (Unrelated: The alt-code for em-dash on Windows is Alt+0151. I just typed my first manual em-dash wow exciting.)

I think offsetting the em dash with spaces is contrary to almost every style guide.

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#53

Post by st_goliath »

> ...on Mac, for example, it’s simply Option + Shift + Hyphen.

Fedora with XFCE here, but last I checked on Windows, it worked exactly the same over there: With a Chinese IME installed, tap shift to switch input language, shift+hyphen produces a double em-dash: ——, likewise, shift+6 a double elipsis: ……

You encounter those a lot in simple, machine translated Chinese, along with literal translations of "not X but Y", "not just ... but also" and similar sentence constructs that are common in Chinese. I suspect that's how a disproportionate amount of that ended up in training material in the first place.

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#54

Post by ryukoposting »

koolala wrote: post #12

Test: 'There is no greater joy in life than typing a sentence, realising it needs a clarification, a caveat, an addendum, but in the same sentence, not a new one, and, guess what, the comma is right there for you. You want to package things neatly together, and the comma lets you do exactly this. Commas make writing feel like you are assembling lego bricks.' I like using commas for spacing though em dashes do the sam…

Yeah. They also use em dashes to repeat a word with emphasis, something that is done much better with parentheses and italics.

> And also occasionally — occasionally — one just needs a random dramatic pause.

> And also occasionally (occasionally) one just needs a random dramatic pause.

I know which one I'd rather read. Though, frankly, I'd prefer neither and I'm trying to remove this kind of thing from my own writing.

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#55

Post by cma256 »

I did not know option + shift + hyphen produced an em dash. I've always used a double hyphen as a stand in -- as I did just now. LLMs don't do it and I haven't been accused yet. Though, more likely, I'm not popular enough for people to notice!

The overemphasis by critics on punctuation and "this not that" is tiring. I don't really know how to describe LLM writing but it has the same qualities as flat soda. Some authors you feel as though you fall through their work with little effort; unable to stop until gravity slams you into their conclusion. LLM writing can feel like an uphill hike to a sewage treatment plant. That is, its easy to convince yourself to stop at any time. There's a positive quality to that. I hope AI labs don't find a way to remove it.

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#56

Post by icedchai »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #50
icedchai wrote: post #7

Troglodyte here... I never use em dashes, never use semicolons, overuse ellipses and commas.

Ellipses are garbage outside of dialog, and even there readers dislike seeing them frequently.

I agree they are inappropriate to use in formal writing. For stuff like blogs and chatting online though, they're fine.

As a reader, I dislike seeing em dashes almost everywhere.

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#57

Post by znort_ »

writes an anodyne wall of text about his obsession with particular elements in a character table - ends with:

PS: if you want personalised advice from me on how to use punctuation correctly, you can now get it for $175/hour.

humans sometimes ...

ps: sasha, if you want me to read your future regurgitations you can now get that for €175/minute (limited availability, only skimread mode for now)

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#58

Post by cindyllm »

cma256 wrote: post #55

I did not know option + shift + hyphen produced an em dash. I've always used a double hyphen as a stand in -- as I did just now. LLMs don't do it and I haven't been accused yet. Though, more likely, I'm not popular enough for people to notice! The overemphasis by critics on punctuation and "this not that" is tiring. I don't really know how to describe LLM writing but it has the same qualities as flat soda. Some autho…

[dead]

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#59

Post by [deleted] »

cma256 wrote: post #55

I did not know option + shift + hyphen produced an em dash. I've always used a double hyphen as a stand in -- as I did just now. LLMs don't do it and I haven't been accused yet. Though, more likely, I'm not popular enough for people to notice! The overemphasis by critics on punctuation and "this not that" is tiring. I don't really know how to describe LLM writing but it has the same qualities as flat soda. Some autho…

[deleted]

Re: Em dashes are amazing

#60

Post by jonhohle »

WillAdams wrote: post #19

One of the more memorable and influential library finds for me was an article in _Advertising Age_ which enumerated all of the special characters which should be set so as to accurately communicate, so in addition to en and em dashes it noted: - − (minus symbol) for use in math equations or to indicate a negative - I believe it also noted that there were two forms for the hyphen, normal and discretionary - × (multipl…

If you’re on a Mac or iOS, it’s extremely easy to use the global text substitution to replace three periods (..., v...) with ellipsis (…, ⋮), and other symbols ((c), (r ), ^o, etc.) with their Unicode equivalent (©, ®, °, etc.).
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