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

Most people don't use the em dash. It's too hard to type and looks too similar to a hyphen.

As a result, a hallmark of GPT-generated text is its (over)using of the em dash--I have stopped using it for this reason an just use two hyphens now instead.

You mean en dash?

No. Em dashes are to separate two thoughts in one sentence. En dashes are for denoting ranges.

Most people don't use em dashes... apart from professional and skilled writers, who use them regularly.

It's a bit of a problem that the same character is both a mark of LLMs and skilled writing.

Yes, true! I was tired when I clumsily made that point above (I am not a skilled writer).

I learned how to use the em dash properly about 6 months before the release of ChatGPT and then when it was released I realized that it used them all the time. So, to convince people that I both know basic grammar and I am human I started to use "--" instead of "—".

OK fair enough, I was referring to the fact that visually the hyphen is more easily distinguishable to the em than the en.

Not necessarily, I don't consider myself a skilled writer by any means but I use em dashes a great deal.

Em dashes allow me to get multiple ideas into a sentence with comparatve ease and have it still make sense. Otherwise I'd have to add additional sentences to a paragraph which itself has issues. With a longer paragraph one has to worry about its readability and comprehensibility, and that means having to restructure it—remove redundancies, etc.—and that takes time.

Good writers can think ahead and do all that restructuring in their heads. When writing about an idea, concept or logical unit thereof they'll write out short, coherent and readable text all in one go, and it will make sense. I only wish I could do that.

As I see it, em dashes are more a crux for bad writers like me (they allow our text to be at least comprehensible).

BTW, the double dash "--" was a common substitute for a em dash in the ASCII days before Unicode.

Ah I see, I thought you were referring to my first point.