Human vs AI: Em-Dashes

Human-Steve vs LLM-Steve: Who did it better?

Topic: Em Dashes

Human-Steve’s take first:

I’m an em-dasher from the early 2000s, after taking a Bryan Garner CLE where he pointed out how good writers use them.

So I take offense that my em-dashed writing—long a secret weapon in my writing repertoire—now makes me look like either an LLM at worst, or at best, someone who runs their drafts through the LLM.

The em-dash is a smoother aside than the awkward and easily ignored parenthetical (who wants to read this, right?). It keeps a sentence together better than a semicolon; semicolons being a different tool that introduce a new but equivalent clause to the first. Getting out of this meta-paragraph—after this sentence—let’s give the em-dash some human-based love.

I use LLMs all the time, to be sure. But my writing, for better or worse, is my own. And I’m not giving up my em-dashes just because Claude/ChatGPT-come-lately read my and others’ good writing and is now excited to copy my style. No sir. I will weather your accusations that my em-dashes hint that I’m an LLM, and let my misspellings be my human flex. 💪

For those who believe em-dashes are a sign of LLM content, you’re likely correct. But give some of us the benefit of the doubt—and if you’re feeling bold—adopt them in your own writing.

Over to you, LLM-Steve.

* * *

Today’s LLM-Steve: Claude

[Claude is grabbing Garner, Vonnegut, and my golden retriever from earlier convos, making this sound more genuinely “me”]

Everyone’s telling writers to purge em-dashes from their prose because AI uses them. I’ve been using em-dashes for thirty years—long before these upstarts arrived.

Bryan Garner endorses them. Legal writing demands them. Good prose needs them. They do something no comma or semicolon can: they create a beat, a pivot, a little dramatic shove in exactly the right place. The em-dash is the jazz musician who leans into the rest. The pause before the punchline. The pivot that makes the reader sit up.

So yes, my writing contains em-dashes. So does Claude’s. My golden retriever and I both have four limbs—I’m not switching to fins.

Here’s the thing about style: it doesn’t belong to whoever arrived last. It belongs to whoever uses it with intention. AI didn’t invent the em-dash any more than autocomplete invented the sentence. Writers were here first—and we’re staying.

Use your em-dashes. Use them well. Use them the way Garner intended and Vonnegut would have approved—sparingly, precisely, and with just enough attitude to remind everyone that a human being is still at the keyboard.

* * *

My prompt to Claude: “In about 200 words, write an amusing post on why I still use em-dashes even though LLMs also use them. Note: your post will follow my own post. A contrast in takes. Go.”