this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2026
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Well, em dashes are commonly used in pairs to make distinct logical clauses; where one is used, two often are. So em dashes per word count isn't a great indicator of LLM use, particularly considering that different subject matter warrant different amounts of distinct clauses—most noticeably when in lists.
Some examples in conversational English:
All that said, LLMs do use em dashes slightly more than I in the majority of cases.
As a human who - like most humans - has not taken the time to figure out which Spock pinch maneouver on my keyboard makes a — (just copy-pasted yours this time), I just use a regular dash instead - I feel that it communicates 99% identically while saving me brain-cycles better used for other things.
I make sure to use hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes where they belong. In ASCII-only environments, I mark an en dash (–) with a double hyphen and an em dash (—) with a triple hyphen.
I would contest the idea that the brain operates on cycles. It is much less organized than that.
I would agree, but it's a workable short-hand / analogy for most of my use-cases.
I (feel like I) know and remember more today than I ever have, but starting around age 50 I must admit, I am also forgetting things and have quite possibly already forgotten more than I currently know. One hopes one is hanging on to "the important stuff..."
Em dashes per word count is how the expert on linguistics article I read counted it so I’m gonna go ahead and trust the expert. It wouldn’t matter either way. If the LLM is using it like humans then the count would be the same.