It's totally fine to use en dashes — no, it doesn't make your writing sound inhuman, amirite?

The humble semicolon;

by Anonymous 9 hours ago

I wish there was something I could do, but I didn't pay attention in school

by Moist_Mountain 9 hours ago

Not always

by WorldlinessSudden466 9 hours ago

Correct. For example, you can use them to separate groups of multiple, comma separated items such as: colours like red, yellow, and green; shapes like triangles, and circles; and sizes like large, medium, and small.

by Anonymous 9 hours ago

I LOVE semicolons!

by Anonymous 8 hours ago

You're obviously not a programmer

by melyna07 8 hours ago

The semi colon allows to link 2 independent propositions, but em dash allows to add multiple and diverse clauses - elliptical, list, even a sole syntagm - for emphasis or surprise.

by Anonymous 8 hours ago

The humble semicolon that didn't want any beef with the em dash but got it anyways

by Sheila65 7 hours ago

OHHHHH 🙀😮🙀

by Careful_Librarian965 7 hours ago

Lmao OP confirmed Jabroni

by purdydorcas 7 hours ago

I never even heard the term "em dash" until the last 6 months or so.

by Anonymous 6 hours ago

had a printing press workshop with a professor the other day and finally learned why they were named this way! it may seem obvious, but the en dash is the same width as an N and the em dash is the width of an M

by Brilliant-Still 6 hours ago

Did you mean to write "em dashes"? Because that's what you're describing.

by Carleelakin 6 hours ago

Too hard to find on keyboard so I ditched it in my writing in 2011 when I started Uni... .....what?

by Careful_Librarian965 6 hours ago

ALT + 0151 or something like that

by blaze81 6 hours ago

Double tap dash. For pity's sake

by Anonymous 5 hours ago

This is not what en dashes are for. There are actual grammar rules for when to use different width dashes and the en dash is not used for a pause. Hyphen: used for hyphenated words En dash: used to convey the idea of "to" or "through" Em dash: used to set off parenthetical information If you're using a dash simply as a visual element where grammar rules don't apply, then you have more freedom to choose the width that works better for your needs. But if you're using an en dash just to create a pause, you're not doing it right. Learn your grammar.

by Old_Importance 5 hours ago

en dashes are used in UK English instead of em dashes, and with spaces either side US English does it like this—an em dash without spacing. UK English usually prefers this – an en dash with spaces.

by Limp_Design 5 hours ago

Really? I have some reading to do, the only times I use an elongated hyphen is when I accidentally copy one of the little bastards and it upsets whatever application I'm using

by LandRealistic4139 5 hours ago

Fair enough, if you used em dashes in a Turnitin project you'd probably get flagged for AI lol

by Sheila65 5 hours ago

The thing is that the reason AI uses it so much is probably because of the training data it got, some of which had likely used a lot of dashes because real people like them. But because of how things like AI work, they can kinda amplify traits that are already there, because it's basically filling in the blanks to make sentences. So if it learned off of stuff with dashes, it's going to shove a lot of them in. It seems to turn those kinds of things up a notch, like it's highlighting those things as more important than they actually are. My big red flag these days is the phrase "true colours" because while not every work that uses it is AI, it seems like AI is "fond" of that term and seems to overuse it.

by krysteldenesik 5 hours ago

Lol it's only primarily associated with AI by people who don't read a lot of human-written material. Anyone who's been exposed to a lot of. Y'know. Books? Knows they've been around forever.

by Bradyschmidt 4 hours ago

AI uses it far more often than human-written works. It's not about just using em dashes, it's the frequency.

by Anonymous 4 hours ago

Nah, just the ones who don't read. People who instantly go along with whatever the ignorant masses decide is "common knowledge" are not what society needs.

by Anonymous 4 hours ago

You don't need a capital letter after the ellipsis.

by Limp_Design 3 hours ago

I have only seen AI use them soo..I definitely judge a body of text that uses them as AI slop

by Choice_Plane 3 hours ago

I used one the other day to point out that a coding error was likely to have been the result of AI slop.

by Anonymous 3 hours ago

-- sure – or — no

by Anonymous 2 hours ago

Before chatgpt: humans used commas and semicolons. After chatgpt: "I've always used en and em dashes!" Footage not found

by Anonymous 2 hours ago

a) you're talking about em dashes, not en dashes. b) the correct formatting omits spaces on either side of an em dash. Fonts may make it appear otherwise. c) why do you have such a strong opinion on punctuation when you so clearly don't understand it?

by Other-Walk 2 hours ago

En dashes are for range e.g. 1–10. Em dashes are used in expressive writing.

by Anonymous 2 hours ago

Literate people and professionals do.

by Anonymous 2 hours ago

Yep. As a lawyer you can pry my em dashes from my cold, dead hands. They serve a purpose!

by Enochkovacek 1 hour ago

Ill stick with an ellipses thanks

by considinefreder 1 hour ago

There's nothing wrong with it, but there's also no point when writing on a computer as thete are other punctuation marks that can do the same job that are actually on the keyboard. Why go to extra efforts? And that's why em/en dashes are a sign of AI use: they're a hassle for humans but not for AI.

by Anonymous 1 hour ago

Whether your words need "space to breath" is irrelevant to the fact that one of AI's signatures is to use em dashes, with the prevelance of AI crap flooding the internet you shouldn't be surprised that em dashes are now being associated with inhuman writing. You can use them, but it's ignorant to think people won't associate the use with AI.

by Anonymous 26 minutes ago

I love throwing them into work emails, lol.

by AdDowntown 7 minutes ago