Emdashes might also insteab be a sign that the commenter is a nerd
Comment on A Completely Natural Conversation in the NYC Reddit
taiyang@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
You know, use of long dash is the same kind of tell as an image having 6 fingers. Not impossible to find in human interactions but generally very rare, especially in online conversation. (I’m not even sure if my phone can do a long dash, just these fellows: —).
kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
Yeah, or just someone that has read books before…
kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
same thing, nerd
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
I use the em-dash a lot. It’s not just about the presence of one, the issue is that LLMs know they exist but don’t know where they go. It’s sort of like a semicolon, which goes where neither a comma nor a period feel right. An em-dashes simply goes where neither comma nor period nor semicolon feels right
On my keyboard, I just click the button on the bottom left to see punctuation, and then long-press the hyphen
Scranulum@feddit.nu 19 hours ago
Single em dashes can almost always be used interchangeably with semicolons—they typically separate independent clauses without a conjunction.
Paired em dashes—used to demarcate parenthetical expressions—can be replaced by commas, but not by semicolons.
It has less to do with what feels right and more to do with the mechanics of the sentence. There is a good bit of wiggle room, figuratively speaking, in deciding whether to use commas or paired em dashes—likewise, whether to use a single em dash or a semicolon is almost entirely a stylistic choice. But I feel like the way you explained it is a bit misleading to people still learning the difference.
An em dash can also be used to delineate an abrupt break in the direction or structure of a sentence or dialogue in a way that commas or semicolons simply—fuck, I just shit my pants.
Not trying to be a pedant, just sharing what I’ve learned over the years.
erev@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Well em-dashes can be used in place of other punctuation that is typically used to denote parenthetical information — such as commas and parentheses — but it also has other uses. Similar to a semicolon it can also be used when changing the idea of a sentence — it’s versatile and often an overlooked and underutilized piece of punctuation. Additionally, when you have multiple parenthenthical levels, such as this which is commonly placed within commas — or parentheses — which can be overused, it allows you to segment different layers of parenthetical information.
affiliate@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
i always thought that em-dashes were used instead of commas whenever
- your sentence already has too many commas, or
- you want to be fancy
thesohoriots@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
An em dash — when used properly — is perfectly fine, but a little academic. iOS will do one automatically with two hyphens and a space.
grue@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Lemmy markdown — which is better than Reddit markdown in some ways, but worse in others — will automatically do a similar conversion, except it takes three hyphens instead of two (two hyphens gets you an en dash). It’s nice, but also unfortunate because it messes up people’s muscle memory since using only two for it mimics what was customary when writing in ASCII, on mechanical typewriters, etc.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
This is a bad take. I use em dashes if I feel it’s called for. It’s just proper grammar. We probably shouldn’t be making people dumb down the way they write so as to not be mistaken for AI.
Read some books, you’ll see that it’s used all of the time.
uuldika@lemmy.ml 16 hours ago
I use dashes all the time, but em-dashes? I don’t even know how to type those. I guess I could long-press the dash on my phone and select it, but… why?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 minutes ago
Because people have their own styles of writing, and some people like the way they look/the rhythm they provide a sentence or paragraph.
I’m not kidding when I say to read some books. They’re everywhere in actual literature.
0x0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 hours ago
Because that’s how typography works? Why do you capitalize the first letter in each of your sentences?
HEXN3T@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 minutes ago
Oh, that’s me–I’m the exception! I use them all the time. Blame autism, not AI.