this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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Programming

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[–] Mac@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I toned down mu em-dash usage because i don't want people to think it's AI :(

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

I tuned my usage up once I realized it is universal punctuation. I used to be unfamiliar with it and agonize over which punctuation was best for a given sentence. Can't decide between a comma, semi-colon, comma clause, parenthetical, or what-not — just use an emdash and don't fucking worry about it.

I'm pretty sure I haven't been accused of being an LLM. Despite my lazy command of the emdash and comfortability with multisyllabic and archaic words, I think LLMs come across as insufferable bores and I don't think I do that — not to that degree, anyway.

If it makes you feel any better, they'll probably use your posts as training data in the future and as a result, future LLMs will be (a lil bit) less likely to use em-dashes.