No, we cannot let the machines just have it. Piping in to voice my appreciation.I saw some suggest that it was never part of good writing anyway, and that’s why ai took it. But if ai also starts to *love* alliteration, will we toss that overboard as well?An obsession with identifying and then avoiding the in-human because we’re afraid of being mistaken for them? Could this be a trick we’d play on ourselves. “This gorgeous piece made me cry…ai probably wrote it.”As in, as the ai gets more and more convincingly soulful, will we then start having to distinguish ourselves by writing purposely in a dead and robotic style? In order to prove our humanity, write as if to say “well, the LLM’s would never write something this robotic…”That would be hysterical.
“First, its creation has some magic, in that I only half-consciously know how I generate it. “ literally what gives?? Sometimes I can only conjure half of it, entering space bar going back up enter. The rush of both ends hits often enough I refuse to look it up
I finished reading and see now I do employ the no space em dash, which I don’t fully understand how to conjure. And probably because the spirirt of my em dash is to rush in some more information in but not wanting to lose my reader that I forgo the space
I agonize over it! But I am no-spacer. The em-dash in any form is sacred to me. Truth: in publishing I could immediately tell the A-listers from the normies: the former used the em-dash, never broken lines, never the en-dash. When I explained the difference I would get baleful looks.
wow i can't believe my eyes! i keep talking about the existential pain of the great ai em dash hijacking (namely, how having it wrenched from my grasp so abruptly has made me feel like i am permanently writing with my non-dominant hand) and—literally yesterday—i described its narrative supremacy as being due to its likeness to two runners racing alongside each other, battling for the leading position. crazy to now read your analogous highway metaphor...
i myself am decidedly team no spaces because i was taught it was wrong early and now i cannot unsee it—kind of in the same way i can't unsee the transgression of a comma splice or an ampersand in the middle of a formal sentence—however, i can respect other allegiances where there is intention and ownership (as opposed to the population that engages in interchangeable usage—alternating between em dashes, en dashes, hyphens, spaces, no spaces—with seemingly no discernible logic)
jesus it hurt me to use even that first tiny two-word em dash interjection, and the subsequent uses—including this one—i type through gritted teeth, forcing myself against the instinctive recoil i now feel...
devastating how quickly a decades-long relationship can sour at the hands of a pattern recognition engine! but this important missive has given me hope for a future (a present?) where a quiet but stalwart resistance takes root and enables us to reclaim what is rightfully ours
using em dashes in casual writing such as internet comments is admittedly overwrought/embarrassing but in this case i've done it in the name of the cause
“I love large portions. Rather too much than too little.” A theme among the notions? Thinking back to the previous writing on ordering “if you’re still hungry”.
Have you seen the editions of Emily Dickinson people have made without em dashes? What the fuck were those people thinking? Maybe an idea worth experimenting with, but they should have realized their new versions were inferior before publishing, no? Which suggests that em dashes could in fact replace all other punctuation and yield superior outcomes. A less directed way of writing, every thought free-floating, an end in itself, only vaguely connected to every other thought.
“First, its creation has some magic, in that I only half-consciously know how I generate it. “ literally what gives?? Sometimes I can only conjure half of it, entering space bar going back up enter. The rush of both ends hits often enough I refuse to look it up
I wrote a section about the exact key strokes but cut it, perhaps l’ll add it back in hehe
I finished reading and see now I do employ the no space em dash, which I don’t fully understand how to conjure. And probably because the spirirt of my em dash is to rush in some more information in but not wanting to lose my reader that I forgo the space
I am now objectively persuaded that Jacqueline Novak has been sent to save humanity.
notably I believe I saw YOU use it recently without a space before and after, and thought, how interesting that Mitch doesn't favor the spaces.
I agonize over it! But I am no-spacer. The em-dash in any form is sacred to me. Truth: in publishing I could immediately tell the A-listers from the normies: the former used the em-dash, never broken lines, never the en-dash. When I explained the difference I would get baleful looks.
hahahaha, you do me great honor.
Blow hard is such a good one
core to my identity but couldn’t use it much during get on your knees times cuz blow job and blow hard too close
wow i can't believe my eyes! i keep talking about the existential pain of the great ai em dash hijacking (namely, how having it wrenched from my grasp so abruptly has made me feel like i am permanently writing with my non-dominant hand) and—literally yesterday—i described its narrative supremacy as being due to its likeness to two runners racing alongside each other, battling for the leading position. crazy to now read your analogous highway metaphor...
i myself am decidedly team no spaces because i was taught it was wrong early and now i cannot unsee it—kind of in the same way i can't unsee the transgression of a comma splice or an ampersand in the middle of a formal sentence—however, i can respect other allegiances where there is intention and ownership (as opposed to the population that engages in interchangeable usage—alternating between em dashes, en dashes, hyphens, spaces, no spaces—with seemingly no discernible logic)
jesus it hurt me to use even that first tiny two-word em dash interjection, and the subsequent uses—including this one—i type through gritted teeth, forcing myself against the instinctive recoil i now feel...
devastating how quickly a decades-long relationship can sour at the hands of a pattern recognition engine! but this important missive has given me hope for a future (a present?) where a quiet but stalwart resistance takes root and enables us to reclaim what is rightfully ours
using em dashes in casual writing such as internet comments is admittedly overwrought/embarrassing but in this case i've done it in the name of the cause
“I love large portions. Rather too much than too little.” A theme among the notions? Thinking back to the previous writing on ordering “if you’re still hungry”.
oh it’s a theme alright extending backwards and forwards in my work
This is so good
Have you seen the editions of Emily Dickinson people have made without em dashes? What the fuck were those people thinking? Maybe an idea worth experimenting with, but they should have realized their new versions were inferior before publishing, no? Which suggests that em dashes could in fact replace all other punctuation and yield superior outcomes. A less directed way of writing, every thought free-floating, an end in itself, only vaguely connected to every other thought.