Grammar columnist and expert June Casagrande dives into why we use the em dash and the AI myths associated with it.

"Here is a lesson in creative writing ... en dash? Around the middle of this year, the em dash underwent large scrutiny with social media users and Gen Z suggesting that the punctuation was a "tell" ...

“Some early AI-generated content (especially before 2023) used em dashes more frequently than the average human writer,” the bot says. “It was part of mimicking formal or stylized writing.” ...

Grammar rules can be tricky, but the difference in using a hyphen vs. dash is more straightforward than you might think. Read on to learn when—and how—to use each correctly in your writing.

Some people think AI writing has a tell — the em dash. Writers disagree. Em dashes have been derided as the “ChatGPT hyphen” — a punctuation mark overused by artificial intelligence.