AI Won’t Steal Today’s Biggest Red Flag—The Em Dash

What if I told you this isn’t AI-generated—that it’s been written by me, a human? Not buying it? Ah yes, the em dash. Of course! That one punctuation mark everyone’s suddenly paranoid about. It steals the spotlight in almost every essay, article—or maybe even in this one.

Lately, the em dash has been getting side-eyed by readers—not because it’s grammatically misused, but because it’s become a labeled red flag for machine-written text. Apparently, too many em dashes signal AI-written text, or maybe that says more about our own insecurities than about machines.

Many readers are familiar with punctuation like commas, question marks, exclamation points, and periods—but beyond that? The dash remains a mystery. Many assume it's a single symbol—but it actually has three forms: hyphen, en dash, and em dash. The first two are another story, but the last? It might be centuries older.

Let’s trace its roots back to 18th-century English printing. In The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst explains that English typographers first used the em dash to mark a pause or break in thought—stronger than a comma, weaker than a period. Its name comes from its length: equal to the width of the letter “M” in the chosen font. Emily Dickinson, for example, is an iconic user of the em dash. In her 1861 poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”, she uses it famously in the line: “Are you—nobody—too?” It’s clearly been a mark of human expression for generations.

So, does AI own this typographic break? Absolutely not. It predates code by centuries.

Then why do we stigmatize it, as if it were a disciple of artificial intelligence—when it's really a reflection of us?

With the swift rise of artificial intelligence in today’s writing arena, many have grown skeptical of AI-generated articles, claiming that whenever an em dash appears, it signals machine authorship—dismissing the possibility of a human hand.

With open access to platforms like GPTs, it’s easy to take an idea and claim ownership—as if the user created it themselves. You give it a prompt, it gives you a piece, and you copy-paste. Simple. But what about stylistic choices? Writers strive to enhance their unique artistic fingerprint—often through punctuation, tone, voice, and figurative language.

AI cast a spotlight on this particular punctuation—sparking interest, accusations, and a flood of unanswered questions. It introduced us to an array of tools to enhance our writing, yet we overestimated this elongated dash and gave it to one of the most powerful tools in history—artificial intelligence.

The em dash is ours, yet it’s being handed over to AI. It has outlived most modern advancements. Maybe the em dash isn’t the red flag at all—maybe it’s the insecurity of those who rely more on AI’s ability than their own. Scrutiny is powerful when used to analyze text—not to doubt human creativity.

So, no. AI can’t steal our em dash—for it was ours to begin with. If we doubt the em dash, what else might we mistakenly surrender?