TL;DR
A blog post published on December 26, 2025, argues for restoring the em—dash in prose and rejects use of hyphens as a substitute. The author says prejudice links em—dashes to machine output and published a plugin that converts hyphens on the blog into em—dashes.
What happened
On December 26, 2025 a blog post titled as a proclamation declared that the em—dash should be reclaimed by writers and removed from the list of punctuation marks unfairly associated with machine‑generated text. The post frames the em—dash as a longstanding stylistic device suited to parenthetical thoughts, abrupt shifts and rhythmic pauses, and criticizes a trend that treats its use as a sign of automated writing. In response, the author announced a site‑level change: hyphens will no longer be used for roles of pause or stylistic emphasis on that blog and an in‑house plugin was released to convert hyphens into em—dashes across posts — including instances where a hyphen would traditionally be correct. The post also notes that the author forms em—dashes in LaTeX and Microsoft Word using double or triple dashes, and invites discussion via the comments and the Fediverse.
Why it matters
- Calls attention to how punctuation choices can become signals in debates about human vs. machine writing
- Highlights tension between typographic tradition (em—dash) and contemporary, simplified usage (hyphen)
- Demonstrates how individual writers can use tooling to enforce stylistic choices across a site
- Raises questions about automated detection and the risks of penalizing particular stylistic marks
Key facts
- Post published on December 26, 2025.
- The author argues the em—dash is a classical punctuation mark used for parenthetical thoughts and sudden turns of phrase.
- The post criticizes a perceived prejudice that treats em—dashes as a "tell—tale sign" of machine‑generated text.
- The blogger announced a site policy to replace hyphens with em—dashes for stylistic pauses.
- A plugin was created to convert hyphens in the blog’s content into em—dashes, including cases where a hyphen might be correct.
- The author states they use double or triple dashes in LaTeX and Microsoft Word to produce em—dashes.
- The post is tagged with 'llm', 'ai', and 'emdash'.
- Readers can view and reply to the post via the Fediverse; the post includes a comments section.
What to watch next
- Reader responses in the blog’s comments and on the linked Fediverse thread (presented in the post).
- Whether other writers or sites adopt similar punctuation‑enforcing plugins: not confirmed in the source.
Quick glossary
- Em—dash: A long dash used in English punctuation to set off parenthetical statements, indicate pauses, or mark sentence breaks; visually longer than a hyphen or en dash.
- Hyphen (-): A short punctuation mark used primarily to join compound words and to separate syllables at line breaks.
- Large Language Model (LLM): A class of machine learning models trained on large text corpora to generate or analyze human‑like text.
- LaTeX: A typesetting system commonly used for technical and academic documents that represents certain punctuation via sequences (e.g., double dashes) in source files.
Reader FAQ
What change did the post announce?
The blog will replace hyphens used as pauses or stylistic marks with em—dashes and the author published a plugin that performs this conversion.
Did the author claim em—dashes are produced only by humans?
No. The post argues there is a prejudice that treats em—dashes as a sign of machine output and rejects that characterization.
Was the plugin described as perfect or contextual in its conversions?
The post says the plugin converts all hyphens to em—dashes, including some instances that traditionally should be hyphens.
Is this a wider policy beyond this blog?
Not confirmed in the source.
A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Dash Posted on Fri 26 December 2025 WHEREAS, the em—dash (—) has long served as the elegant scaffolding of the English sentence, providing the…
Sources
- A Proclamation Regarding the Restoration of the Em-Dash
- Inside the unofficial movement to save the em dash
- reclaiming em-en dashing back from AI and lowercasing
- Stop AI-Shaming Our Precious, Kindly Em Dashes—Please
Related posts
- How to Embed Files in C/C++ Binaries: Tools, Preprocessor, and ASM
- C/C++ Embedded Files: Methods to Include Resource Data Inside Binaries
- Private blogging and journaling with AI-simulated readers for personal writing