The Case for the Em Dash

Remember when “you’re on mute” became the universal moment on Zoom, Hangouts —pick your platform? That’s what the em dash has become in writing. Every time someone sees (—) in a post, thread, article, email, contract, business plan, poem, song—whatever—it triggers the same knee-jerk: “GPT wrote that.” Or worse: “you didn’t write that.”

But here’s the thing: when ChatGPT or any LLM slips in an em dash while editing a draft, it often makes the thought clearer, more readable—like a friend helping you sharpen what you were already saying. Dismissing the dash, or discounting the words altogether, isn’t about style. It’s about insecurity. It’s the same strange righteousness as pretending you never once forgot to unmute yourself.

The em dash isn’t a scarlet letter of AI. It’s punctuation. And in the right hands, it’s clarity.

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Original notes draft below….