Is the Em Dash Being Bullied ? Or Are Writers Just Tired of Being Misread?

Apparently, if your writing uses an EM dash, you didn’t write it.

This thought piece was originally published June 2025

OK, so I had to weigh in on a strange claim spreading across social media.

Apparently, if your writing uses an em dash, you didn’t write it. ChatGPT did. Or DeepSeek. Or Perplexity. Pick your LLM machine.

According to this logic, thousands of human writers — past and present — must be fakes. And yes, there are plenty of em dashes in this post, too, so feel free to report me to the Em Dash Police.

Let’s get something clear. The em dash isn’t new. It’s not a sign of lazy thinking. It’s not a neon sign that says, “AI wrote this.” It’s a legitimate punctuation mark used since the 18th century. In fact, the concept of dashes as punctuation marks dates back to the 15th century.

Here’s what an em dash is for:

• It separates clauses for clarity.

• It introduces emphasis or interruption.

• It replaces parentheses and colons, depending on tone.

That’s it. That’s all. That’s grammar. It’s not some robot watermark. It’s not a machine fingerprint. It’s style. It’s choice. It’s language in motion.

Writers — real ones — choose punctuation on purpose.

We know what the em dash does. We also know when not to use it. And yes, sometimes we use more than one. Because flow and meaning matter more than the approval of a comment section.

So why are people — particularly non-writers — acting like the em dash is guilty by association? Because an LLM occasionally uses it too? Since when did punctuation become a Turing Test?

Here’s what’s actually happening: A lot of people are trying to sound like experts on writing — without understanding writing. They’ve confused style with source. Syntax with software. Grammar with gimmick. It’s easier to say “AI wrote this” than to admit you don’t understand tone, structure or rhythm. And it’s far easier to point at punctuation than to engage with content.

Writing has always evolved where styles shift, and rules soften. But when a tool — like the em dash — is pushed aside by those who never learned how to use it, that’s not evolution. That’s laziness. Or fear. Or worse, groupthink.

Let’s be honest: Most LLMs produce flat, forgettable slop. That’s not because of punctuation. That’s because they don’t know how to think. They predict. They don’t create.

The em dash doesn’t belong to the machines. It belongs to people who know how to write. People who understand flow. People who see structure as a tool, not a threat. People who know grammar isn’t an aesthetic — it’s a system.

So no, the presence of an em dash doesn’t mean AI wrote it. It might just mean a trained writer did. That should be respected, not questioned.

And if you want to learn how to use these tools correctly — AI included — ask a writer. We use language for a living. Not likes.

Now — let’s talk about the en dash.