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New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

marginalia.nu

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Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#121

Post by OJFord »

atourgates wrote: post #35

Shoutout to my English Major comrades who have been using em-dashes forever, and have had to stop so we don't sound like AI. If AI starts use the New Yorker style diaeresis (umlaut-looking thing when there are two vowels in words like coöperate) I swear I'm gonna lose it.

> New Yorker style diaeresis

I was going to say that I respect it, but find it utterly absurd that they do that. But your comment made me look it up again—I had no idea it was just obsolete/archaïc (except in the New Yorker), I'd thought it was a language feature their 'style' guide had invented.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#122

Post by stego-tech »

devb wrote: post #64
stego-tech wrote: post #34

I had no idea what I was using were called “EM-dashes” until the AI bubble. I just used them to reflect pauses in my speech for tangents - an old habit from my IRC days. Incidentally, some folks reported my stuff for potential AI generation and I had to respond to the mods about it. So that was kinda funny, if also sad to hear that some folks thought I was a bot. I’m a dinosaur, not a robot dinosaur. I’m nowhere near…

> I just used them to reflect pauses in my speech for tangents - and old habit from my IRC days. The tell here is that you used a hyphen, not an em-dash.

Okay, see, that's context even I forget, but you're right and bears repeating:

This `-` is a hyphen, which I love, even if I'm fairly sure I'm not using it correctly in grammar a lot of the time.

This `--` is an EM-Dash, apparently, which is also what I never use but I also thought was just a hyphen in a different context (incorrect!).

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#123

Post by OJFord »

MarioMan wrote: post #84
have_faith wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely in non-english languages (I seem to remember some super wide Arabic "single character" ones...?)

Last I’d checked, “﷽”is the widest Unicode character.

It's rendering visibly narrower than the big dash up thread for me, on FF on Android. (Maybe HN's stripping one or more of the combining chars though, so it's not actually showing what you meant in full?)

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#124

Post by basch »

d4mi3n wrote: post #50

I'm still salty that I can't use em-dashes anymore for fear of my writing being flagged as AI generated. Been using them for years—it's just `alt+shift+-` on a Mac keyboard and I find them more legible in many fonts compared to the simple dash on the typical numpad. It's so sad to me that good typographical conventions have been co-opted by the zeitgeist of LLMs.

are there really places that a comma, super-comma; or (parenthesis) dont work roughly as well? I find the em-dash mildly abhorrent, even before this all.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#126

Post by dang »

d4mi3n wrote: post #50

I'm still salty that I can't use em-dashes anymore for fear of my writing being flagged as AI generated. Been using them for years—it's just `alt+shift+-` on a Mac keyboard and I find them more legible in many fonts compared to the simple dash on the typical numpad. It's so sad to me that good typographical conventions have been co-opted by the zeitgeist of LLMs.

Just do it anyway—I always have, and always will.

Well, I haven't always—just for maybe 20 years.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#127

Post by mrktf »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #17

It's a predictable outcome, and it will get worse. What will/can HN do about it?

It can crank proof of work schemes to maximum, something like you need to burn 15-20 minutes 16 core cpu to post a single comment. It will be infuriating for users, but not cheap for bots

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#130

Post by yorwba »

MarioMan wrote: post #84
have_faith wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlikely in non-english languages (I seem to remember some super wide Arabic "single character" ones...?)

Last I’d checked, “﷽”is the widest Unicode character.

It depends on the font, of course. Some renditions look like regular Arabic text, others are much narrower: https://fonts.google.com/?preview.text=%EF%B7%BD&script=Arab
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