Regard by EM Dash – Favorite Punctuation mark of AI, and how it blows your cover
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Let’s talk about EM Dash. Not the small innocent link, not its slightly more confident cousin, the dashboard. No, I’m talking about “Em Dash”, this long dramatic line that Ai Loooooooves to drop your sentences as if it were paid by dashboard. Seriously, it’s the AI ​​version of Jazz Hands.
You may not notice it, but almost everyone does it. This is the dead gift that you left your favorite robot acolyte dress your words in the drag of AI, and just like a bad wig reveal in the third act of RuPaul Dragsters raceIt can be … a little too much. Let me prepare the scene: you write a sincere e-mail to your team. Something vulnerable, perhaps even raw: “I have thought a lot about how we work together – and how we can be better – not only as colleagues, but as human beings.”
Except, wait. You have not written this sentence, I did it. You just wanted him to repair a typo and perhaps Zhuzh in tone, but now he is full of EM dashes, introspective rhythm and strangely placed poetic breaks. You were officially “marked by EM”.
What is EM brand for AI?
The EM dashboard is this long horizontal line (-) often used in place of commas, settlers, parentheses or occasional dramatic break. It’s like the Swiss army punctuation knife, and loved it.
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AI is obsessed with EM rushes as the way in which generation Z is obsessed with Y2K fashion; It is confusing, strangely elegant and offensive at the limit when it is overused. But here is the kicker: Ai uses EM dashes like glitter on the cupcake of a child, everywhere. Even when it is not suitable. Even when you say: “No glitter, please”.
I literally typed at AI: “Please delete EM dashes.” And what should I get? “Got it!” follow -up of:
“This is a major opportunity – the one that requires urgency – and clarity – for a maximum impact.” Thank you, GPT. You have deleted exactly zero.
So how do you speak human (but do you always use an AI)?
Despite the Dash drama, I’m not here to tell you to completely throw AI. AI is brilliant to polish, reformulate and get out of you in your own mental way. But like a child with glitter glue, you must always supervise it.
Here are three really useful tips to make sure your communication always looks like YouNot Hal 9000 with a journalism diploma.
1. First human project, second robot
Always, and I always mean, write the first project yourself. Whether it is disorderly, typo-random, emotionally chaotic and uncomfortably honest. This is what gives your voice its fingerprints.
SO Let it repair it, reorganize and suggest a better flow, but not before. AI can’t guess what you meant if you don’t give him something to work first. Otherwise, it just serves you a bowl of oat flour perfectly punctuated with the emotional depth of a letter of DMV form. Think about it like this: you are the chef, the AI ​​is just your fancy side chief with a small high-end hat. You tell him what you do. You don’t let it invent the recipe.
2. Dispress the EMS (and others AI tell)
Once the AI ​​gives you its best version, tear it away as if you edit a script on a speaking golden retriever that writes blogs.
To research:
- Em Dashes (obviously)
- The expression “in the world to the rapid rhythm of today” (favorite opening line of AI)
- Overward of rhetorical questions
- Repetitive alliteration (AI really thinks it’s intelligent)
Make a “find and replace” for “-” if you have to. Replace them with commas, periods or, God does not like, real breaks in thought. This will instantly humanize your tone. If your sentence has the impression of being told by Morgan Freeman in a documentary on nature, it is probably too AI-ESH.
3. Add the “you” back
After polishing, reread it aloud. Ask yourself:
- Would I say that aloud in brunch?
- Does it look like me, or an invited columnist for Forbes Try too hard?
- Have I just accidentally quoting Tony Robbins?
If it is too rigid or polite, loosen it, add a little slang. Break a grammar rule, use phrase fragments, write as you speak when you are in depth of three mimosas and give life advice to your best friend. It is the secret sauce.
Example:
AI version: “Let’s explore innovative solutions to raise our trade trajectory.”
Your version: “Let’s see how to stop spinning our wheels and already grow this thing.”
Feel the difference?
Why you should always use AI, even if he likes EM dashes more than it is socially acceptable
The AI ​​is not the enemy, it is your collaborator, your co-series, your trainee who drank too much espresso and returned with a mission statement of 1,200 words for a brunch leaflet.
Use it for:
- Tighten your message
- Help with structure and flow
- Flee your writing when you are fried in the brain
- Exceed white page syndrome without crying
Do not leave that it is the only voice in the room. Think about it as automatically, useful when it’s just, hilarious when it’s false and dangerous if you don’t pay attention.
If your message starts to ring as if it belongs to a Wall Street Journal OP-ED, but you just try to send your VA on a podcast calendar, to step back, to kill the EM dashes, to recover your little strange voice and to remember: I don’t replace you, that simply makes you look 12% more intelligent … If you supervise it as a parent of helicopter in a dance in college.
Go now, change like a human, delete like a savage and send with Swagger. (And please, for the love of all analogy things, delete EM dashes.)
Starr Hall is an entrepreneur, veteran and marketing publicist.
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