R.I.P em dash ⎯ Is AI making our writing less ‘human’?
Written by Jonny Corrall
As a copywriter, I’m often told that AI will take my job.
But why did no one warn me it’d take my em dash first?
This month, Gen Z has christened em dashes the dividing line between humans and AI ⎯ a cordon of rare and suspicious punctuation.
Prevalent in ChatGPT scripts and absent from most keyboards, it’s been dubbed the ‘ChatGPT dash’, an indicator you’ve had help from the digital devil’s hand, while your own digits had themselves a nice day off.
Which is a big issue if you’re me…because I bloody love em dashes.
And it turns out I’ve been failing this particular Turing test.
Em dash is dead… but what will be next?
Like a hyphen outstaying its welcome, em dashes are the long crutch that prop up all my unsteady sentences ⎯ a big tow rope of extra emphasis and info!
They’re less mysterious than an ellipsis…
More emphatic than parentheses (which are too introspective and tangential).
And crucially, they’re much bolder and expressive than shy, wimpy commas.
But last week, I was asked to stop using them in my work.
Because, like it or not, my natural way of writing now bears the hallmarks of ChatGPT.
I can protest all I want: “I’ve made an em dash keyboard shortcut, I promise!”
But ultimately, the culture has spoken. The em dash is now the dialogue of the bot.
Which is both an unnerving and upsetting thought.
For decades, we’ve challenged AI to produce authentic human writing. And now that it’s mimicking us successfully, it’s throwing the gauntlet right back at us…
Can we sound more human than them?
The em dash witch hunt shows that in the age of AI, there’s a real desire for human prose, and that AI-writing is still rejected as inferior.
Yet it also reveals that people still think it’s easy to identify AI language ⎯ that it’s a patterned structure full of repetitive tell-tale signs.
But how long until we genuinely can’t tell anymore?
Because if people assume my em dash-littered writing is AI… are we not already there?
There is a worry here that the better AI gets at replicating our language, the more punctuation, words, and phrases will be declared inhumane.
Looking further into this, I discovered that people have in fact already declared words like ‘delve’, ‘vibrant’, and ‘tapestry’ as damning ChatGPT lingo.
In fact, there’s a whole list of ‘obvious’ lexical giveaways you can read here. A list that surely promotes blanker tapestries and a lot less vibrant writing.
Other ‘signs’ of ChatGPT use are Oxford commas, numbered or bulleted lists, and the passive voice.
So should we give up on those, too?
It’s going to get to a point where the most human thing to do is err.
I can c a wurld wer we all start writing like this\ With gud gramma being axed in favour of fonetic scribblings/ ⎯ it’d definitely make the reader pay more attention!
But what does the future of human writing now look like?
And does it mean forfeiting the language that makes us, us?
How human writing might evolve
In answer to that last question, the answer is probably yes.
But that’s not necessarily a bad or even unusual thing.
Yes, I might have to give up the em dash to sound more human, but I’ve given up things before.
I no longer write ‘lol’ or ‘lmfao’ when I laugh out loud.
I don’t use words like ‘Fri-yay’ or ‘vibes’ when I’m writing social media posts for clients.
And I don’t put full stops in texts because they make me sound ‘too blunt’.
In short, language always evolves, and AI is just another obstacle in the road, forcing us to steer in new directions.
So, although the loss of some basic punctuation and formal language might be frustrating, why not embrace it?
Sure, AI might sound more human every day. But it’ll always be humans who decide what that sounds like.
So let’s mess with perfect
structure
Let’s use semicolons & ampersands; Let’s WRITE IN ALL CAPS SO THAT WE DON’T NEED EXCLAMATION MARKS
Let’s be less efficient. (Or sorry, let me try that again… Let’s use a few too many words here and there, even when Grammarly tells us not to.)
Let’s be more opinionated. Who cares if it’s not intelligent, well-formed, or insightful… at least it’ll be you.
In this AI vs. Human race, we seem to forget that AI is following our lead, and we’re so worried about it overtaking us that we forget we can set the pace.
So let’s keep changing it… and see if it can keep up!
About the author
Jonny is Brilliant’s Senior Copywriter and has been with the agency since 2021. Thankfully not a man of few words, he brings his wordsmithery to Brilliant’s clients, leading on copy for creative campaigns, branding projects and social media marketing.
Specialising in tone of voice work, he’s helped fashion unique brand voices for Lyle’s Golden Syrup, Party Rings, Fox’s Biscuits, Thorntons Chocolate and many more!
