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How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)

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650 points Stratoscope | 1 comments | 27 Mar 25 20:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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bangaladore ◴[27 Mar 25 21:08 UTC] No.43498204[source]▶
Somewhat off topic, however, I'm thoroughly convinced that there is a very high probability something is AI generated when I see Em dashes. Anyone else noticing this?

ChatGPT for example almost always uses them. I'm sure they are more common in academic writing, but its now super common on boards like Reddit.

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1. kbenson ◴[27 Mar 25 21:34 UTC] No.43498459[source]▶
If it's posted through a publishing platform (not just a commend on one or on a public site), it's very possible they do an automatic conversion of some of the common cases. That could also be filtering down to comment boxes and stuff, I'm not sure.

That's not to say that generated content doesn't use them, just that using them as an indicator might require a bit of nuance based on where you're seeing them.