Dear valentine: I love, love, love the em dash — but why is that?

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Not really sure how to explain this kind of punctuation "affection" I have for the em dash — which some call a dash on steroids. If you don't lean toward discussions on writing or syntax, perhaps now's a good time to opt-out. I'm all for a binge-worthy series like Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale or catching some college hoops, but when a social post caught my attention, I suddenly felt the need to share and form a "word smith" posse for this. "M" IS FOR Well, the mark gets its name because it's traditionally the same width of the capital letter "M" in the typeface. It has a place for discussion because of AI, with it all — the ballet of LLMs, a world of creatives gone wild (like the extra fingers that appear to fill space or some "clustering" thinking), the "maybe's" and the possibilities. Perhaps this punctuation mark that has been a little misunderstood, misused, or underused, can finally find its calling. I too, have been guilty of misusing the em dash, en dash, and plain ol' hyphen. You'd have to know how I look at content and creatives to get the dynamic of why this is on my radar. I fell into a string of posts feeding on my LinkedIn (thank you, algorithm) in a context of something like "Save the Em Dash" — very intriguing with merch options like T-shirts; I was hooked. For the record, at the time of this blog, I do not have any "em dash" clothing in my wardrobe. This piqued punctuation interest led to Googling, and a sidebar distraction going down the rabbit hole of another "word-y" discussion, the Oxford comma (check out The Great British Grammar Police). When I write, I love how the em dash puts that pause mid-thought — words with room to breathe, ideas with space to wander. It's also February, and I needed a catchy way to package the blog. "Loving" all things word-related, this seemed to jump in the workspace (and hope you like the ChatGPT valentine "conversation" hearts). LEVEL SETTING, BIRDS CHIRPING When we moved to the northwest suburbs of Chicago, I hit the ground running with an amazing opportunity with Lake County. I got to immerse myself serving residents and visitors with open space, trails, and natural habitats (31,700 acres), with the then team mentored by the director of public information. Truly one of the best things I've been able to use throughout my career and agency involvement was his emphasis on writing, AP style and format. I don't think I realized then how important that influence would be (I'll just say "thank you" Andy K. here). So, the em dash is ingrained in my prose along with content structure. According to mentions, the em dash is at a pivotal crossroad due to AI; friend, foe, either, or? Does their appearance serve red flags that it is written by a machine/prompt produced? How and does this matter? There's a lot of gray here (and likely there should be). In a WSJ article (a paywall but you can bypass it by creating a free account), Joel Stein and his "Don't Let AI Ruin the Em Dash" sums it up nicely. He writes: The em dash, a punctuation mark a bit longer than a hyphen that denotes a long pause, has become the black light on the hotel sheets for AI-shamers — a sign that an essay, a letter or any kind of written work was written by a machine and not by a human...OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X the following brag: “Small-but-happy win: If you tell ChatGPT not to use em dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it’s supposed to do!” You could view the appearance of em dashes as indicators of AI writing. But that's not accurate and puts it as an unfair target. AI should be viewed as a trusted wingman. In Stein's piece, the em dash introduced to create an applied pause to "sound more human." According to Brent Csutoras, appearing on Medium, em dashes are "absolutely everywhere in the training data. In books, articles, essays, humans used them so often that AIs learned them as a default natural flow. It's like asking a bird not to chirp." Creators should not be "shamed" (kind of a harsh word but the article uses it, so I will) for having AI complement, augment, or enhance (including for speed). Its existence demands hyper diligence, (re)vetting work, refined research; second nature for all who share their work publicly and care about its impact. Seems like the em dash could be a great metaphor for the AI immersion. The "strong pause, break in thought, or emphasis-add" of its DNA serving as a keystroke foothold, the machine-learning-complements-human-workflow bridge — that deep breath, waiting-to-exhale attempt to work together. If that's the case, we should all show the em dash some love! The AP Stylebook uses space around the em dash (before and after); other manuals do not. ——— The Upright Tiara, a blog and part of cookiesandcontent.com, is a space where storytelling, MarComm resources, and a healthy mix of accessories of everyday life, culture and community, come together. Here, we celebrate our unique value to shine, promote self-worth, authenticity, and the joy of communicating in a changing digital world.