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

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358 points tkgally | 5 comments | 30 Aug 25 03:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.861s | source

The use of the em dash (—) now raises suspicions that a text might have been AI-generated. Inspired by a suggestion from dang [1], I created a leaderboard of HN users according to how many of their posts before November 30, 2022—that is, before the release of ChatGPT—contained em dashes. Dang himself comes in number 2—by a very slim margin.

Credit to Claude Code for showing me how to search the HN database through Google BigQuery and for writing the HTML for the leaderboard.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053933

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lynndotpy ◴[30 Aug 25 15:17 UTC] No.45075379[source]▶
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.

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1. uv-depression ◴[30 Aug 25 15:32 UTC] No.45075502[source]▶
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.
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2. _alternator_ ◴[30 Aug 25 15:47 UTC] No.45075619[source]▶
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.)

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3. latexr ◴[30 Aug 25 16:52 UTC] No.45076072[source]▶
> 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).

4. rogerrogerr ◴[30 Aug 25 23:51 UTC] No.45079053[source]▶
You aren’t putting spaces before and after the dash - which lowers your AI probability score in my mind.
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5. rcruzeiro ◴[31 Aug 25 00:33 UTC] No.45079275{3}[source]▶
ChatGPT (at least for me) does not add spaces around the em dash unless you explicitly tell it to use British spelling and conventions.