Show HN: Hacker News em dash user leaderboard pre-ChatGPT

You might also want to rank by how often people use double hyphens-- like so.

I'm probably not alone here in being a longtime Linux user who started using a Macbook after the Apple Silicon transition, late 2022.

On Windows and Linux, inserting an em-dash is a laborious alt-code process. But on MacOS with an Apple keyboard, the `option` key acts like a tertiary shift, so an `–` em dash is just <option><->.

I didn't start using em-dashes (typing -- is just second nature to me and I'm still on Linux most of the time) when I got a Macbook, but I imagine some people in my shoes did.

> On Windows and Linux, inserting an em-dash is a laborious alt-code process.

On Linux, you can set up a Compose key, after which an em-dash is compose, three hyphens (Macintosh: shift-option-hyphen), and an en-dash is compose, two hyphens, period (Macintosh: option-hyphen). Also, a left (resp. right) single (resp. double) quote is compose, less-than (resp. greater-than), typewriter single (resp. double) quote. That’s how I enter them.

You can also (alternatively or at the same time) set up a “Level 3 shift” aka “Alternate Characters Key” aka AltGr, which gets you quotes with one of the English International layouts or quotes as well as dashes with an English Macintosh layout.

That character is actually the en dash (properly used in ranges, e.g. 5–10). The em dash is [shift][option][-]. I would also include triple hyphen in that list; for those of us used to TeX a double hyphen (--) is an en dash and a triple (---) is an em dash.

Yup. I use an em dash all the time after I started using TeX. Probably makes my posts look like AI—but it’s worth it.

To get an em dash on an iPhone, long hold the hyphen—it’s the third (longest) option.

(Edit: typo. Using iPhone after all.)

> The em dash is [shift][option][-].

On the US layout, sure, but there are other layouts where they are switched (i.e. ⌥- is em-dash and ⇧⌥- is en-dash).

iOS will convert a double dash into an em dash automatically — see? (I typed a double dash)

It didn't do it for me -- that's a double dash. I wonder if it's because I have smart punctuation turned off — yep, that was it.

Well, it's be nice if I could choose that option, but not smart quotes. C'est la vie as an iOS user.

It will also print stars automatically if you type in your password.

hunter2

I started using them in 2008 or so (I think) when I created a custom keymap to added greek characters and nbsp. I stopped using them after MacOS changed to make them automatically because then their use started to be an obvious sign of being an apple user (see also: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2096459).

Someone recently created some long list of my reddit comments using them as a farcical claim of having used ChatGPT to author many dozens of 2010 comments.

On Linux you can write the dashes by setting a Compose key.

  --. → –
  --- → —

Why did someone go to that effort?

You aren’t putting spaces before and after the dash - which lowers your AI probability score in my mind.

I'm one of the early developers of Bitcoin. This made me a target of a conman pretending to be Bitcoin's creator. The conman eventually filed a trillion dollars worth of vexatious lawsuits against myself and others, and we defeated him in court rather profoundly. During the litigation ChatGPT came out and he immediately started using it to create fake evidence, much to his detriment. He also used to to write his witness statements (unlawfully) and his appeals, resulting in (insubstantial) sanctions. He's subsequently gone full whispering earring, pumping out whole novels worth of chatgpt glurge every few days, in an apparent desperate attempt to show that the stuff people identified as chatgpt was really him.

He has a cult following who believe him to be a victim of a lizard jew conspiracy or something and who are quite displeased by people mocking him for continually putting out obvious AI slop. And clearly the people who are accusing him of slopping it up must be doing so themselves... plus then there are people making fun of these people.

Of course, emdash use was not actually a meaningful factor in any of the determination of chatgpt use in court... but it's a signal that even fairly unsophisticated people notice and often presume underlies claims of AI (ab)use.

TLDR: morons consider me their enemy

ChatGPT (at least for me) does not add spaces around the em dash unless you explicitly tell it to use British spelling and conventions.

That's what I see: *******

I too, use -- as an em dash and it comes naturally.

I didn't know it actually worked, I just see *******

On Linux, we are free to add symbols to third or fourth level:

ʼ́ ¹² € § ° ≤≥ • — – ≠± ®©™ «» „“ …

Yep, I was a Linux user for the longest time, so naturally used compose for em dashes (compose key + triple hyphen IIRC). I was later thrilled to learn that on macOS (which was called Mac OS X back then) it's even faster to type with option-shift-hyphen, and never let go of em- and en-dashes in my writing.

It's sad and not at all unsurprising that people who even half-assedly care about typography get this effort attributed to AI use.

In the post-competence workplace we're collectively building now with all the LLM coding tools, I already see people intuitively attributing non-trivial code to AI. It's a projection of own inability, more or less.

At some point any sentence with proper capitalization will be the marker of AI.

Thank you for explaining, that's insane and I'm sorry you have to deal with that.