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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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encypherai ◴[27 Mar 25 21:22 UTC] No.43498336[source]▶
Yes, several of the most popular (and even lesser-popular but newly open-sourced models such as Gemma 3 27b) overuse Em dashes. Even when prompting them to not use dashes, they almost can't help themselves and include them occasionally anyways as it must be part of their learned stylometry. It's just not a common symbol to use at all as most people generally use commas for the same purpose. I can't even remember learning about Em dashes in my college english classes.
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1. nextos ◴[27 Mar 25 22:02 UTC] No.43498690[source]▶
I submitted an application which I typeset using LaTeX, and some people thought it was AI-generated because of en and em dashes. I have been using these since forever.