Abandon the em-dash in your human writing?

The irony—and it’s a major irony—is that real writers use em-dash frequently, and for reasons. As a written signifier of verbal speech pauses, it means something different than what commas and semicolons mean. It connects while separating. 

That’s why so many writers use em-dash when it is the best mark for the job. In turn, chatbots use it because they were schooled on millions of writers.

A moral conundrum

That this human thing real writers do is now a red flag to readers who mistrust AI is—as I said—ironic. And for editors, it’s frustrating, as it  presents a moral conundrum:

Replace a well-used em-dash with a comma so suspicious readers won’t mistakenly flag the text as AI-generated? I’ve done it. Particularly in bulleted lists where every list item includes a em-dash that could work as a colon, and/or when the writing is fairly dry—and thus potentially triggering for ticked-off hunters of AI signifiers. Le sigh.

Ultimately, the best defense is to write well. Write humanly. The closer you make it to that aim, the fewer the folks who will worry about the AI-or-human provenance of your words.

Photo ℅ energepic.com.