alt Hacker News> (I never used em-dash (big fan of the parens), and I resisted for a while, re: ai, but now am trying to use them appropriately)
I started using the emdash after learning of the compose key feature of X11. Not tuning the emdash dial to 11 or anything, but occasionally. Now I avoid it to spare myself the indignity of someone confusing me for a chatbot. In general I prefer a more vulgar style of writing as a direct response to those chatbot tics.
Of course, that now distinct LLM style was kind of a thing before, too, but if you weren't writing some bullshit on SEO on Medium or congratulating yourself for your achievements on LinkedIn, using elements of that style wasn't such a source of confusion. Now the chatbots will frame everything as though it's an insight on B2B sales strategies that struck them when they tripped on a dog leash while jogging to work.
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your comment was a pleasure to read :]
Some of us old enough to learn to type on keyboards without compose keys (and OSes pre unicode) learnt to use multiple dashes for en- and em-dashes -- like this. Like two spaces after a period, this is ingrained muscle memory that I don't consciously think about when typing.
I'm very glad of this now, because it means that I can still write with en- and em-dashes, while also demonstrating that my writing is not LLM-generated.