ChatGPT loves the em dash ( — ) the way a Labrador loves a tennis ball — enthusiastically, indiscriminately, and with absolutely no sense of when to let it go. That’s why seeing an em dash used in ...

It’s rare that a punctuation mark becomes grist for the online rumor mill. But recently, an uptick in focus on AI and its impacts has brought a Blake Lively-esque level of attention to the em dash, ...

The debate about ChatGPT’s use of the em dash signifies a shift in not only how we write, but what writing is for. By Nitsuh Abebe There are countless signals you might look for to determine whether a ...

In the escalating arms race between AI models like ChatGPT and human beings trying to determine if what they’re reading was machine-generated, there is no easy or surefire way to spot the bot — or is ...

OpenAI says ChatGPT will now ditch the em dashes if you tell it to. The telltale sign that supposedly signals text written by AI has popped up everywhere in recent months, including in school papers, ...

Identity has never been an issue for Ad Nut. With a day split between sorting, hoarding, and consuming nuts, berries and other woodland delicacies, and escaping the attention of murderous beasts, Ad ...

A version of this column first appeared in Stephinitely, a weekly newsletter from columnist Stephanie Hayes featuring a bonus column and behind-the-scenes chatter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been giving this note to my editing clients: “Replace floating hyphen with proper em dash.” It comes up when I’m proofreading images, like PDFs, and I see a hyphen ...