I Used Em Dashes Before AI Made Them Popular

For those not familiar with the different types of dashes, you’ve got the hyphen (-), which is well-known for connecting words together. Then there’s the slightly longer en dash (–), mostly used to indicate ranges, like the years I’ve maintained a blog (1998–2026). And finally, we have the em dash (—), specifically designed to be a visual separator.

Long before AI allegedly “popularized” the em dash — which is adorable, by the way — I was out here searching for a visual separator that did something commas simply could not. Because here’s the problem with commas: they accumulate. They breed. You start with one polite clause, and before you know it, your sentence reads like a monologue delivered by Christopher Walken. Or maybe William Shatner. You can practically hear the inhaling.

Semicolons? I tried. For a few years, I was That Person; the one who uses semicolons as if I have a monocle and strong opinions about fountain pens. But semicolons don’t visually separate — they politely suggest distinction. I wanted a dividing line you could see from across the room.

Then there was my ellipsis era. Three periods… because that’s what ellipses are… except when I briefly experimented with four periods….

The mid-2000s were a lawless time.

Ellipses felt lazy. What I wanted was a way to keep the sentence intact — to preserve the rhythm — while still carving out a side thought. So I originally started using a hyphen surrounded by spaces - clean, confident, unpretentious. And then most apps and text editors started automatically stretching it into a full em dash when you hit space or Enter. It looked right — but only with spaces surrounding it, creating that visual breathing room. Cleaner separation. Clearer hierarchy of thought. A pause you could see.

It wasn’t long before em dashes found their way into the style guide at my publisher — and plenty of others — because they simply read better. But they often leave out the surrounding spaces—something I don’t like the look of—and could be confused with hyphenation at a distance.

And now? People often think of em dashes as a “tell” of AI-generated writing, which is a bit silly. Here’s the thing: AI didn’t invent the modern use of the em dash. Humans did, and AI models were simply trained on good writing that already leveraged them.

Many writers use em dashes because sometimes a comma is too weak and a period is too final — or a semicolon just doesn’t work. Sometimes a thought deserves its own spotlight without demanding its own sentence.

So if you stumble across a piece of writing rich with em dashes, resist the urge to nod knowingly and whisper, “This was definitely AI-generated.”

Of course, it may be AI-generated. But it could also have been written by someone who simply loves the elegance they provide — and has for years.