A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it.

***

Liza asks:

“This is a bit of a long shot, but I am desperate. I’m repeatedly getting asked to remove the em dash from email copy. By the CEO. To avoid looking like copy is written by AI.

“Its purpose and use is defined in writing guidelines. But I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle here. I refuse to stop using it entirely. Because it genuinely adds so much value to written copy. ARGH!

“How would you approach this? Education? Stubbornness? Or just cave? 😞”

* * *

OK… <cracks knuckles>… I’m here for you.

You don’t have to have a nit-picking CEO to question your em dash choices. Maybe you’ve seen this sentiment:

“As soon as I see an em dash, I stop reading.”

A line in the sand drawn because AI loves em dashes. Ergo, anything with an em dash must be AI. 

That’s like saying Batman wears a cape, so anyone in a bath towel is Batman.

* * *

This CEO’s real concern probably isn’t the em dash itself. It’s a worry that OTHERS might glimpse an em dash and—aha!—accuse you with hot self-righteousness of AI slop. (That last sentence contains an em dash, by the way. Actually, two. Lovingly placed there by me.)

Em dash panic has created a strange new form of reputational self-surveillance. We are treating a normal punctuation mark like contraband, and asking good writers to pre-defend normal writing choices from imaginary accusations. WHAT ARE WE EVEN DOING.

Anyway. I could really get annoyed about this. (And I will, in a second.) But I’m also practical and I want to help Liza: What do we do?

A few thoughts:

>>> Lead with nodding agreement, then reframe. (Good advice for life, not just em dashes.) Something like:

“Listen, boss. You’re right that AI often overuses the em dash. And I understand the concern that people may now associate it with AI. But AI also overuses bullet points, punchy one-liners, raccoons-in-trench-coat metaphors, goblins, and words like quietly and delve and it’s not-x-it’s-y.

“So the fix isn’t singling out punctuation and executing it at dawn. The long-term fix is using our tools with enough judgment that the copy is unmistakably ours.”

That shifts the conversation…

From: “Ban the em dash!”
To: “How do we make our writing feel intentional, specific, human, warm, and only ours?”

And it signals something important: You do think about this. You are not using punctuation by accident.

>>> Show, not tell. (Also good advice for life; are you writing these down?) Pull a few examples where your em dash is doing its job. Ones you love, where it’s creating pace, emphasis, contrast, surprise, a human little turn of thought.

Then pull a few examples of AI-sloppified em dash installations, where the dash feels lazy or overdone. Line them up, side by side. Help your CEO see the difference.

Don’t point out merely that a sentence has an em dash. Point out why the em dash earns its place, and how and why you can’t imagine any other punctuation there without completely ruining the flow, meaning, or drama of a sentence.

An em dash doing its rightful job:

“There are many em dashes in this book—too many to count, although you’re welcome to try—each one handcrafted and tenderly set in place.”

The two dashes create a quick, self-contained aside—a little wink to the reader before the sentence resumes. It has pace. It sounds like a person having a thought in real-time.

P.S. That sentence may be part of the dedication of my new book. Should I actually dedicate it to the em dash? Hit reply and let me know.

An em dash doing someone else’s job:

“There are many em dashes in this book—each one serving as a powerful tool for emphasis, clarity, and flat-out drama.”

Here, the em dash is just a runway straight into the ocean. Nothing turns. Nothing interrupts. Nothing is revealed. The words after the dash simply continue in the same-same direction. A comma would do the same job:

“There are many em dashes in this book, each one serving as a powerful tool for emphasis, clarity, and emotional resonance.”

The differences are subtle but real. Here’s the two-second test I use:

The difference is not dash vs. no dash.

The difference is whether the dash creates a meaningful pause, a turn of thought, contrast, surprise, a human aside, or emphasis that the sentence has actually earned.

A useful em dash is a hinge. It turns the sentence.

A lazy em dash is a fog machine. It makes things feel dramatic without making them clearer.

That is the conversation worth having.

Not: “Does this punctuation look like AI?”

But: “Is this punctuation doing real work?”

Finally…

>>> Offer a usage guideline instead of a ban. Like: “How about we set a standard instead? One or two em dashes per email, max. Never as a lazy trailing thought. Always when another punctuation mark (a comma, a hard stop in a sentence) won’t do.”

It’s funny that Liza asked this question now, by the way, because the editor of my new book just this morning observed that I use a lot of em dashes. She knows my book is all me (she’s got the receipts for every painful draft!), but others who don’t know me might see the em dash and act like Liza’s CEO. So I’ll be taking my own advice here, on all these points.

* * *

Why do I care so much about this issue? Why not just cancel the stupid em dash forever? Why do I care so much that I launched an Em Dash Store?

Why is this the SECOND newsletter I’ve dedicated to the em dash? Here is the first.

I refuse to let us be bullied by AI. I refuse to let anyone—machine or individual—tell me what’s human and what’s not.

The way we take care of small things is how we take care of big things. The em dash is a small thing. But it’s one important way writers can claw back what’s ours from a technology that has—let’s be honest—already taken quite a bit from us.

We can’t push AI back into a box. But we can reclaim what’s ours.

If you’ve always used the em dash: Please continue!

If you haven’t, learn how—and why it matters. It’s not about being “correct” with grammar and language. It’s about using the tools we have to express emotion, drama, insights on the page.

AI uses em dashes. Humans use em dashes.

That does not make an em dash an AI fingerprint any more than Batman’s cape makes everyone in a bath towel Batman.

The em dash is not a tell. It is punctuation. And, used well, it does real work.

Is this a hill I want to die on?

Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.