It depends on the keyboard, and the software. I’m using HeliBoard on my phone right now, and all I have to do to make an em dash is hold the dash key—that’s it. It’s actually quite trivial to add em dashes in various cases, and I wish folks wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
I also make use of other characters, like my beloved interrobang. I actually have that pinned to my clipboard, so I can paste it when it’s appropriate.
“You care about writing enough to use special characters‽”
I suppose it is a woefully underutilized glyph, isn’t it? I consider it very important, and make sure to check any typefaces I download, to ensure it’s designed before using them in creative projects. While it didn’t become mainstream, I love letting people know it exists through writing when an opportunity arises.
Exactly, they’re usually pretty easy to add if you want to. I totally understand most folks don’t talk so formally when in informal settings, but the em dash thing is hardly the smoking gun paranoid people want it to be. A lot of the “tells” by themselves are just punching at competent writers; it’s the same thing that happens to visual artists, or musicians, or anything else creative. You can try and find several tells at once—and sometimes you do—but it tends to boil down to glorified witch hunting, rather than something of substance. People want desperately to be able to just know something is AI generated on vibes alone. It’s not always going to be that easy, and most aren’t the sleuths they believe they are.
It depends on the keyboard, and the software. I’m using HeliBoard on my phone right now, and all I have to do to make an em dash is hold the dash key—that’s it. It’s actually quite trivial to add em dashes in various cases, and I wish folks wouldn’t pretend otherwise.
I also make use of other characters, like my beloved interrobang. I actually have that pinned to my clipboard, so I can paste it when it’s appropriate.
“You care about writing enough to use special characters‽”
“Yes.”
Okay, but using the interrobang is a perfect sign that the text isn’t AI generated 😂 Genius move!
Agree about the em-dash thing, it’s really not that hard.
I suppose it is a woefully underutilized glyph, isn’t it? I consider it very important, and make sure to check any typefaces I download, to ensure it’s designed before using them in creative projects. While it didn’t become mainstream, I love letting people know it exists through writing when an opportunity arises.
Exactly, they’re usually pretty easy to add if you want to. I totally understand most folks don’t talk so formally when in informal settings, but the em dash thing is hardly the smoking gun paranoid people want it to be. A lot of the “tells” by themselves are just punching at competent writers; it’s the same thing that happens to visual artists, or musicians, or anything else creative. You can try and find several tells at once—and sometimes you do—but it tends to boil down to glorified witch hunting, rather than something of substance. People want desperately to be able to just know something is AI generated on vibes alone. It’s not always going to be that easy, and most aren’t the sleuths they believe they are.