this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
141 points (90.3% liked)

Ask Lemmy

32639 readers
1155 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01100101 01100001 01101100 00111111

edit - honestly not a troll. is it the specific formatting of "em" dashes? i know for sure we use them all the time. or at least i do. but they're just dashes to me, so..

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 69 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

The whole em dash argument is bullshit propagated by LinkedIn lunatics with zero knowledge of AI, writing or typography.

Different types of dashes/hyphens have different uses. People who take care of their copy and understand the nuances of punctuation use em dashes regularly. People who are in a rush, typing on phones or simply who don't know any better, put the same en dash everywhere.

Em dashes is one of the things that LLMs actually do right for a change. Calling text with em dashes weird, unnatural or ai generated is like making fun of someone for using proper grammar or hygiene.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Depending on the phone and keyboard, I actually find it easier to use em and en dashes on mobile instead of the computer. Usually on mobile I can just hit the button for numbers/symbols and long-press the hyphen-minus, then select the appropriate alternate dash. Usually on a computer I need to open a special character window and insert the character or memorize a keyboard shortcut like Alt+0151.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

At least on a Mac keyboard, the en dash is also alt+hyphen and the em dash is shift+alt+hyphen.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

that's the breath of somewhat-unpredicted fresh air i was hoping to breathe

edit- i should add that i don't mean "predicted" in the llm sense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm more likely to use an em dash when writing on a phone, not less, because the on-screen keyboard has it more easily available. It's when I'm using a physical keyboard writing on desktop that I'm more likely to use two hyphens.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's that an iPhone keyboard? My android does not seem to have an em dash easily accessed. On my PC though I added an ahk script that let's me easily access commonly used symbols like ©®™°•... And an em dash (on phone now, no idea how to type it) by using right alt (do not confuse with alt right) and a key.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Gboard on Android is great for dashes. Of course privacy people will look for alternatives

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Ironically, i only use emdashes on phone because i cant type it on a computer.

On my phone i just long-press the hyphen and—

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Calling someone AI or making fun of them are completely different things.

Using proper grammar isnt bad, but may still be unusual.