Lately (October 2025) the em-dash has been cast as a sign of AI generated text. It isn’t. It is a mainstream punctuation mark much beloved by many writers including myself.
I love the em-dash for lots of reasons. I do tend to overuse it but that is my prerogative. One of the reasons that many amateur writers don’t use it is because it is not on a keyboard. However there are shortcuts. On a Mac the keyboard shortcut is option + shift + dash (-); using MSWOrd on a PC you can use two unspaced dashes that will can be converted to an em-dash by some applications.
It has been around for a very long time and was given its name by the printers who used it. An em-dash is the length of an “m” whereas the “en-dash” is the length of an “n”. Along with the hyphen, they are each used quite differently in punctuation.
Grammar versus style
“Rules” of grammar are not always undisputed. Some grammar usages cause much debate (e.g. the split infinitive). That is why large institutions that produce written English—for instance governments, newspapers and publishing houses—create their own style guides so that the authors and editors have a standardised reference they can follow.
As a professional writer who started in the discipline as a public servant I learnt my style from the Australian Government Style Manual. This contemporary resource has some relevant things to say:
“Em dashes are the same width as the font height. Various style guides treat dashes differently. Some styles use unspaced em-dashes instead of spaced en-dashes.
Both dashes are grammatically correct and can be used to show:
- additional, amplifying and parenthetical material
- an abrupt change.
If you are using em dashes in your content, don’t space them. It creates too great a gap in text. This is a typographical concern and interrupts reading flow.”
When you are writing formal English it is important to use punctuation clearly and consistently as cues to your reader. Creative writing often uses punctuation to disrupt the reader and create novel effects—and here the em-dash excels.
Writers who use the em-dash
Kurt Vonnegut—used em-dashes for indicating a sudden break in thought or an interruption in dialogue
Emily Dickinson—used them extensively in her poetry to create pauses and mark a separation (some have suggested she used “em” to stand for Emily)
James Joyce—used them to replace quotation marks for dialogue in his works
Virginia Wolf—used them to create pauses within conversations.
Em-dash empowerment
The em-dash is an established, important, and, to me, powerful part of good writing. We should not allow a giant misconception (seemingly generated by AI about itself) to dumb down the power and diversity of our writing.
Posted on Linked IN
I usually post my word blogs on Linked IN at the same time as I post them here. This week I have been a bit under the weather and the Linked IN post went a little viral before I posted here. It was interesting to see how the responses fell. Now, please understand that I am not suggesting this is a meaningful survey but there were some interesting trends. From reading other people’s posts on the besmirching of the use of the em-dash, I think there are some truths to be seen.
The strongest supporters of the em dash were overwhelmingly writers, editors, and communications professionals (copywriters, editors, teachers, authors, journalists). They see it as a mark of their craft and style and a legitimate pre-AI grammar device.
Those who argue that the em-dash is an AI artifact tended to be non-writers by profession (programmers, consultants, engineers, lawyers, project managers). Their reactions were less about style and more about readability or meeting rules. Many thought it was an illegitimate piece of grammar because they simply hadn’t encountered the em dash much before, perhaps because it is not on the keyboard.
So broadly—writers defend the em dash as expressive punctuation; non-writers mistrust it as suspicious AI generated punctuation.
That pattern holds across the national mix, Australian, American and British—the divide is professional more than cultural. Outside the writing community, people were often discovering the em-dash for the first time from AI generated text and thus they equate it with AI simply because they haven’t recognised it or come across it before.