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New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

marginalia.nu

271–280 of 643 posts

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

#271
post #125

[flagged]

We don't ban accounts for criticizing AI (or anything else). We ban them for breaking HN's rules, which you have a long history of creating accounts to do.

Genuine question -- Is it allowed for me to keep creating new accounts? I can leave if you want me to.

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

#272
Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could - which made it easy.

Now someone may search old posts without a time cutoff and assume I'm an LLM. That combined with the fact I sometimes write longer posts and naturally default to pretty good punctuation, spelling and grammar, is basically a perfect storm of traits. I've already had posts accused twice in the past year of being an LLM.

Kind of sad some random quirk of LLM training caused a fun little typography thing I did just for myself (assuming no one else would even notice) to become something negative.

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

#275

Fwiw I did some more comparisons, looking for words disproportionately favored by noob comments: word noob new p-value ---------------------------- ai 14.93% 7.87% p=0.00016 actually 12.53% 5.34% p=1.1e-05 code 11.47% 6.04% p=0.00081 real 10.93% 2.95% p=2.6e-08 built 10.93% 2.11% p=2.1e-10 data 8.93% 3.51% p=6.1e-05 tools 7.6% 2.67% p=5.5e-05 agent 7.47% 2.95% p=0.00024 app 7.2% 3.09% p=0.00078 tool 6.8% 1.83% p=8.5e…

It's funny - some months ago I noticed that I use the word "actually" lot, and started trying to curb it from my writing. Not for any AI-related reason, but because it is almost always a meaningless filler word, and I find that being concise helps get my points across more clearly. e.g. "The body of the template is parsed, but not actually type-checked until the template is used." -> "but not typechecked until the te…

[flagged]

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

#276
post #167
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.

I totally agree. When I use em-dashes in my /family iMessage thread/ I get accused of having used ChatGPT to write my reply—my one-sentence reply about dinner plans. Dear Lord.

I wish my family knew what an em dash is. That's gotta count for something!

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny - some months ago I noticed that I use the word "actually" lot, and started trying to curb it from my writing. Not for any AI-related reason, but because it is almost always a meaningless filler word, and I find that being concise helps get my points across more clearly. e.g. "The body of the template is parsed, but not actually type-checked until the template is used." -> "but not typechecked until the te…

I find various verbal tics come and go in my speech and writing over time. Lately "I mean" has been jumping out at me. It really only bothers me when I notice I've used it for multiple comments in the same thread or, worse, multiple times in the same comment.

I used to use honestly quite a bit and then noticed how unnecessary it was (does it ever improve a sentence?) and how overused it is on Reddit.

I've also pretty much dropped just from my vocabulary when I'm talking about an alternative way to do something.

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

#278

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

I do agree... I sometimes use worse grammar (like that ellipses) and leave in typos just so my comments feel more "real" now.

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

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would recently created accounts be 10x more likely to be created by owners of Apple products or English majors than the baseline?

I doubt it explains any reasonable fraction of this, but github moving from early adopter techies to general population "normies" would be a reason for the shift. I would expect it explains at least some increase in the use of em-dashes.

Do general population normies really use em-dash, or do they just reach for the dash they see clearly printed on their keyboard?

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

#280
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Join me in double-dash em proximates. Shows you manually typed it out with total disregard token count and technical correctness.

Just yesterday I saw Claude.ai use double dashes in its responses for the first time...

Exactly... How long until people figure out that LLMs emulate common writing patterns as their sole reason for being
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