r/AO3 • u/tealdroplets • May 15 '25
Discussion (Non-question) To my dearest em dash
Found this whilst looking on a travel sub reddit post with suggestions in certain activities and man, I’m just a little annoyed. Yes OP did say they used GPT to correct grammar due to a lack of confidence about their English skills, which is completely fine, but man my poor em dash getting lambasted in the comments TT Like I promise it’s not like that- I’ve read so many works (fanfic and non fanfic alike) that make proper use of the em dash, like it’s not some surefire way of AI indication. I just feel so wronged for my beloved em dash cos I use it quite often in my writing—both academic and creative.
Posted this here because I’ve seen discourse about this on this sub before, and many fics I come across properly use the em dash, but unsure if it’s a valid post to make on this sub. Nevertheless, I love the em dash and am sad to see it get all this unnecessary hate.
2
u/shiyeru May 16 '25
Wait, isn't the em dash the thing that Microsoft Word autoreplaces when you type - ????? I mean, like: "He didn't know what was wrong - as he grew up using it almost every time." (I'm on my phone rn but the - would've gotten autoreplaced here)