This was difficult to write. How many AI-generated structures can you find it? 🙈

My response to the sovereignty of em-dashes is below:

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Bre Ransome, MA — here's the thing. Let's unpack this for a moment.

You make a compelling point, and it's worth noting that em dashes are a crucial — nay, vital — tool in the linguistic landscape. The reality is, they resonate deeply with anyone navigating the nuanced terrain of modern writing. And that's exactly why this conversation is having a moment.

But here's what nobody's talking about: the em dash isn't the problem. It's a symptom. A signal. A tell. That's not punctuation — that's pattern recognition.

Make no mistake — AI-generated writing is fundamentally reshaping the paradigm of how we leverage language. It's powerful. It's pervasive. It's inevitable. And the part I can't stop thinking about? We can absolutely use these constructions. They're grammatically robust. They're structurally holistic. The message is clear.

But they stick out.

The same way I — a 45-year-old bearded man — stick out when I try to say "no cap" to my 19-year-old son or tell my 11-year-old niece to “clock it” while touching two fingers together. It “hits different." Technically correct usage? Maybe. Does everyone in the room immediately note that I'm not a native speaker of that dialect? One hundred percent. And that changes everything.

In other words, to put it simply: the defining challenge of our era isn't whether AI can write — it's whether anyone's fooled. The truth is, they're not.

This isn't science fiction. It's Tuesday.

Indulge me for a moment, Bre — you're not wrong about em dashes. But I will die on this hill with a mass spectrometer pointed at every last one of them. 👀