Don't cancel the em dash — it's more than just a ChatGPT trademark

Indian Express

04-06-2025

Grammar nerds will attest to the versatility of the em dash, not to be confused with the shorter en dash (–) or the even shorter hyphen (-). The em dash allows writers to freely — and wildly — spill their thoughts onto paper, interrupting their own prose to expand or clarify as necessary. It brings a certain dramatic flair to an otherwise straightforward sentence.
Lately, though, the em dash has earned a strange reputation. Readers have branded it — rather cruelly — as a mark of artificially generated text.
Historically, the em dash has had its fair share of naysayers. Philip B Corbett, who retired last month after serving 35 years at the New York Times, and 14 of those as their Standards editor, had cautioned writers against the overuse of dashes.
'Used sparingly and carefully, the dash can be a helpful device. But as I've noted before, a profusion of dashes can be a sign of overstuffed sentences or convoluted prose,' Corbett noted in a 2012 article. He also warned that the use of parentheses within dashes, creating what he called the 'Russian-doll effect', makes for difficult writing.
One can't disagree with Corbett. The use of any punctuation should be to aid the reader and not the other way around. While writing this piece, I came across a fascinating website called 'Just The Punctuation', which strips texts of all their words, leaving behind the punctuation.
These tiny marks are proof that, since the dawn of mankind, human beings have strived to communicate effectively with one another. When carefully crafted, these dots and dashes convey a message: breathe, take a moment to reflect, what do you think?
A true artist among grammarians, the em dash steps in when the comma isn't enough for emphasis, or when the information could be glossed over if contained in a parenthesis. It can even replace the colon when the relationship between the text and the following information isn't strictly formal, but more flexible — when the information is a suitable, yet not completely necessary addition.
This multifaceted role has also lent it a kind of ambiguity that has divided editors for ages. Is it lazy to rely on the em dash when the writer can't think of a more suitable punctuation mark? Or is it the mark of a writer unbridled by the rules of grammar?
The em dash had slowly faded away from modern texts with the emergence of QWERTY keyboards that came equipped with only the hyphen. Even the en dash, used to define a range, say 5 pm–6 pm, receded into the shadows. The hyphen, which was originally meant to connect words to form a common idea, took over the en dash's role. And the em dash was replaced almost entirely with the less dramatic comma or colon. Writers did not want to take the effort of typing out two hyphens for a forgotten punctuation mark.
Now that the em dash is back, many argue that it's a dead giveaway of AI-generated text. Some suggest that ChatGPT overuses, if not misuses, the em dash. Public forums such as the OpenAI developer community board and Reddit have lengthy discussions on ways to stop ChatGPT's em dash spree. Em dash loyalists assert that it is a mark of good writing, and ChatGPT may have picked it up from the academic papers and journals it is trained on.
Take, for instance, the works of novelist Joseph Conrad. I was introduced to the impressionist genius in my college literature course. His texts are littered with em dashes. In a 1896 letter to his publisher about his first story, An Outpost of Progress, Conrad wrote:
'It is a story of the Congo. There is no love in it and no woman — only incidentally. The exact locality is not mentioned. All the bitterness of those days, all my puzzled wonder as to the meaning of all I saw — all my indignation at masquerading philanthropy have been with me again while I wrote. The story is simple — there is hardly any description. The most common incidents are related — the life in a lonely station on the Kassai, I have divested myself of everything but pity — and some scorn — while putting the insignificant events that bring on the catastrophe.'
Conrad employed the em dash, using it for all its intents and purposes. It gave his sentences a sort of intriguing hesitation. He used it to fracture thought, to layer emotion, and to make space for contradiction. And he wasn't alone. Emily Dickinson made the dash her signature, giving her poems a unique cadence. American author J D Salinger used it to trail into afterthoughts. To call the em dash a ChatGPT export is to deny it this legacy.
So yes, the em dash may now embellish Instagram captions and garnish long emails, but I for one welcome its newfound notoriety. May the em dash — the purveyor of impulse, a vessel for context and a gateway to digression — remain a lasting imprint of human messiness.
Sonal Gupta is a senior sub-editor on the news desk. She writes feature stories and explainers on a wide range of topics from art and culture to international affairs. She also curates the Morning Expresso, a daily briefing of top stories of the day, which won gold in the 'best newsletter' category at the WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Awards 2023. She also edits our newly-launched pop culture section, Fresh Take.
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