An Elegy for the Em Dash—and the Human Writer

There is a piece of punctuation that breathes. It is not a full stop, which ends a thought, nor a comma, which suggests a gentle pause. It is the em dash—that elegant, unruly, and versatile line that captures the very rhythm of human thinking.

It is an interruption. A sudden turn. An emphatic clarification. It is the closest we can get on the page to a breathless aside, a thought so urgent it has to muscle its way into the sentence. I was reminded of its power recently while re-reading Richard Morgan’s Broken Angels. Morgan wields it masterfully, using it to inject pace and raw, unfiltered thought into his prose. His characters do not just speak; their minds race, and the em dash is the track it runs on.

For the uninitiated, its function is both simple and profound. The em dash can be used to signal an abrupt change in thought, to set off an amplifying or explanatory clause, or to enclose a parenthetical statement with more emphasis than parentheses can offer. It is the Swiss Army knife of punctuation—a tool for the writer who trusts their own voice.

And yet, a shadow has fallen over my dear em dash. Along with a handful of other stylistic flourishes, it has become a digital fingerprint. An algorithmic tell. A quiet accusation that your words are not your own, but the product of a machine.

Suddenly, its use feels risky. That perfectly placed dash—the one that adds just the right cadence—now carries the potential to have your work flagged, dismissed, or devalued as AI-generated.

It is not alone in this new, unofficial index of forbidden styles. The list of tells is growing, and it is a sad inventory of what makes writing interesting:

• A well-placed semicolon, linking two closely related independent clauses.

• The use of transitional words like “Moreover” or “Furthermore” to build a logical argument.

• Complex sentences with multiple subordinate clauses—the kind that show a mind wrestling with a complex idea.

• Even a slightly formal or academic tone can now raise suspicion.

We find ourselves in a bizarre paradox. To prove we are human, we are being quietly encouraged to write less like a thoughtful, stylistically-aware human and more like someone who has flattened their language to avoid suspicion. We are sanding down the interesting edges of our own communication to avoid being mistaken for the very machines that were trained on the rich, complex history of our own writing.

It is a subtle, creeping homogenisation of style, driven not by editors or house rules, but by the fear of an algorithm’s cold judgement. This erosion of stylistic authenticity is closely tied to the question of when “AI-assisted” becomes a meaningless label — if we flatten our writing to avoid detection, what quality standard are we even measuring against?

So what are we to do? Do we abandon these wonderful tools—these marks and structures that give our writing texture, rhythm, and personality? Do we surrender the em dash and its companions to the machines? This personal anxiety sits within a much larger industry disruption, where the very notion of human-crafted writing is being redefined.

I hope not. But I confess, these days there is a moment of hesitation—a small, sad pause—before I let my finger strike the key.

Are there parts of your own writing style you now second-guess for fear of looking like AI?

Related reading: We can be human again on the visible brushstroke as the human fingerprint.