Have you seen the long bar on any online content lately?
Love them or hate them, the em dash is causing a great rift between professional and casual writers. Once a trusted stylistic flourish in novels and journalistic features, it’s now showing up everywhere from punchy Instagram captions to long-form articles. It has become so all-too-common in many digital texts these days that it's earning a reputation as the “ChatGPT hyphen.”
But what exactly is the em dash, how does it differ from its shorter cousins, and what does its newfound ubiquity mean for today’s content writers and copywriters?
Stylistically, the em dash is more interruptive or striking than other punctuation marks, making it a go-to for drawing attention to asides, amplifications, or sudden turns in tone. Here's how they differ:
- Hyphen (-): The shortest of the three, used to join words (e.g. “well-being”) or split a word at line breaks.
- En Dash (–): Roughly the width of the letter N, used for ranges (“2010–2020”) or to link complex compounds (“New York–style pizza”).
- Em Dash (—): About the width of an M, it’s longer than both the hyphen and en dash, and can replace commas, parentheses, colons, or semicolons for a more dramatic pause.
A Brief History
Far from a modern invention, the em dash has been hiding in plain sight since the age of movable type. In the 19th century, printers measured spacing in units called “ems” (the width of the capital M), and the em dash simply denoted a dash one em wide. Yet early writing curricula often overlooked it and students learned commas and periods long before the dash made its debut in style guides.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans may have been the first to develop some sort of a dash in their literature. And the earliest version to have been used was found in the 1622 Okes-print of William Shakespeare's "Othello." A century later, in 1733, Jonathan Swift's "On Poetry" distinguished the shorter break and the longer dash.
Through the decades, the em dash became beloved by literary giants. Emily Dickinson used it for breathless urgency while mid-century journalists leaned on it for quick asides. By the time typewriters and word processors popularized automatic dash substitution, the em dash was firmly entrenched in print, valued for its versatility and ability to mimic natural speech rhythms.
Traditionally, academic writers reserved the em dash for parenthetical clarifications or to replace colons in thesis statements sparingly, to preserve formality. But digital marketing flipped the script as it punctuates headlines and bulleted lists in website copy, email subject lines, and social media posts.
Content strategists argue that em dashes help break up walls of text, making long-form articles more scannable and punchy. Marketers even A/B-test dash-heavy headlines against colon-driven ones, often finding that the dash version wins on click-throughs. As long as it's used properly, the em dash can be a powerful engagement tool.
Then came the rise of generative AI and large language models with the em dashes prominently used in most chatbot responses. In fact, you can see the widespread use of it on a chart by Google Trends. You could see a significant usage and interest on em dashes starting March 2018. Now, it's trending upwards and you will see a lot of online content having the tell-tale signs of generative content.
As tools like ChatGPT and its kin churn out copy at scale, one pattern emerged early: an almost reflexive reliance on em dashes. Prompt engineers discovered that, no matter how many times they instructed models to avoid them, those stubborn dashes kept creeping back in. Some say that its apparently baked into the very DNA of large language models.
That overuse sparked a backlash on X, Reddit threads, and even podcasts, digital natives started claiming the em dash was the dead giveaway of AI-generated text. Some Gen Z users dubbed it the “ChatGPT hyphen” and advised stripping dashes from essays to dodge AI suspicion. Yet experts caution that punctuation alone is a shaky detector as AI’s dash addiction stems from human-written training data, not a nefarious plot to fingerprint generated prose.
It has come to a point where some writers are accused of using generative AI in their writing even if they know how to properly used such a punctuation.
What It Means for Writers
For today's writers, there are things that they should know when it comes to using the em dash:
An em dash should feel like a deliberate stylistic choice, not filler. If you find yourself blinking three of them into every paragraph, pause and ask: “Could a colon, comma, or sentence break do the job better?”
2. Balance Is Key
Mix up your punctuation toolkit. Combine periods, semicolons, colons, and even parentheses to keep readers on their toes. See these two things as your guide posts: variety reads as human and over-reliance reads as robotic.
3. Know Your Audience & Medium
In a dense white paper, semicolons might offer the gravitas your audience expects; on Instagram, an em dash can inject personality and scannability. Match your dash usage to context.
4. Stay Ahead of AI Scepticism
If clients fear AI fingerprints, reassure them with clear style guidelines that justify each dash. Show them in a quick style sheet how your punctuation choices serve tone and readability, not model defaults.
It's Here to Stay
Even with the widespread rift on its usage, the em dash is here to stay whether you like it or not. Its rich history, unmatched versatility, and continued popularity in both human- and AI-generated content prove that it still has a rightful place in the writer’s arsenal. The real skill lies in wielding it sparingly, with purpose, to enhance clarity and engagement.
Despite the rift, the em dash isn’t on its way out. Its rich history, unmatched versatility, and continued popularity in both human- and AI-generated content prove that it still has a rightful place in the writer’s arsenal. The real skill lies in wielding it sparingly, with purpose, to enhance clarity and engagement.
After all, punctuation is more than mere decoration. It’s the rhythm of your writing, the subtle cue that guides a reader’s breath and mind. So, whether you dash forward with an em dash or pause thoughtfully with a comma, make your choice count. Your readers and your click-through rates will thank you.
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