Another AI- and typography post (and again, another day, another coincidental pair post!), this time in defence, from Brian Phillips, of my second-favourite punctation:
The em dash is a tool that lets writers expand their ideas without making them inaccessible. It’s almost always easy to follow in use, and the rules that govern it aren’t as ironclad as the rules that govern parentheses or semicolons; you’re able to deploy the em dash in more discretionary ways. It lets you break up sentences into parts that rub up against each other, challenge each other, give each other new inflections, or change each other’s meanings in ways that resemble the flow of human thought.
Phillips spends many words explaining how grand piece of punctuation’s apparent favour by AI is side effect of better writers everywhere using it. for much longer. We had, he suggests, just become less familiar with it in the past decades because brevity in written communication was favoured over complexity.
It all makes sense, but I still hesitate for knee jerk reactions to include it any my more professional writing.
But maybe, just maybe, it’s time to reset my habit and embrace the em dash once again.