The Em Dash Is Not the Problem

I stopped using em dashes when writing copy for clients. Not because they don't serve a purpose, and not because I dislike them, but because someone decided that a punctuation mark is proof of AI, and I didn't want to put my clients in an unfavorable light—even if the em dash suited the writing style well.

Here's what actually bothers me about the em dash finger-pointing. Punctuation was never the tell-tale sign; it was just easy to point at. People wanted a shortcut for "this feels off," and a hyphenated line was the easy target. YES, AI is known for em dash overuse; I will give you that, but not every article, blog, or sales copy with an em dash was written by AI.

Here's the real way to spot it. AI writing rounds everything off into a general shape. Real writing keeps the weird, specific detail nobody would bother making up. "A client was frustrated with slow turnaround" is the rounded-off version. "A client called me at 9pm because her invitation proofs were two days late and her mother-in-law was already asking questions" is the real one. AI can fake the first sentence all day long. It's bad at the second one because it requires something actually happening to somebody.

Try this test on anything you're reading. Take out the specific detail, the name, the number, the odd little fact, and see what's left. If the sentence reads exactly the same without it, there was nothing in it to begin with.

The other tell is language nobody actually talks with. "We leverage innovative strategies to deliver exceptional results and foster meaningful connections with every client we serve." Technically, that sentence tells you something. But nobody sits across from a friend and says "we foster meaningful connections." Nobody thinks that way over coffee, and nobody who's scrolling past your sales page on their phone reads that way either. That sentence took real effort to construct, and it shows, because real people don't talk in phrases that took effort. They talk in the version that just comes out of them.

The minute your copy sounds like it was built instead of said, you've lost the average person before they finish the sentence.

Try that test too. Read the sentence out loud like you're talking to the person next to you. If it sounds like a speech instead of a conversation, that's the tell.

Lazy writing existed long before AI showed up, for the record. Generic taglines. Copy that could belong to any business in any city if you swapped the logo. Testimonials that sound like the business owner wrote them and not the client who supposedly said them. AI didn't invent vague writing. It just made a lot more of it, a lot faster, and made it sound confident while saying much about nothing, or sometimes, much about something.

So skip the punctuation detective work. Look for the missing detail. Listen for whether it sounds like something a real person would actually say out loud. Not the dash.

I still think the em dash got short-changed. But I've got better things to do than fight for a punctuation mark's honor, so for the most part, it is staying retired. There are times when I know it is an absolute must, but most of the time, a comma will do.

For the record, I'm not anti-AI. I spent time training an AI model when I worked in global software, long before it was the thing everyone had an opinion about.

‍AI isn't the problem. Using it badly is. That's a different post, and it's coming next.

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