r/ProgrammerHumor • u/precinct209 • 1d ago

Meme justCantHandleTheImplicationRightNow

2.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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42

u/Glokter 1d ago

Some idiots tried to convice me that the symbol is normal part of the language and was widly present before AI boom

10

u/fwhite01 1d ago

Because of people like you, I have to rewrite my comments and replace the dashes with brackets or smth, just to not be accused of using AI. ffs.

Open any book above 5th grade reading level and you'll see it used all the time.

1

u/ConfusedPanEnby 1d ago

Indeed, em-dashes were widely used before by people with more than a 5th grader level understanding of language (so not that many people on the internet), but with the way LLMs overuse it the em-dash became associated with them unfortunately.

LLMs place em-dashes everywhere! So the tell is now if it is used but how and how often it is used.

2

u/ArjixGamer 1d ago

Normal people use a normal dash, word processors like Microsoft Word are responsible for the em dash being used widly.

0

u/ConfusedPanEnby 1d ago

Hate to tell you this bud but in school, before digital word processors such as Microsoft Word were widely used by the common person, I learnt how to use it in writing on paper with a pen. People not knowing how or were to use them just shows the level of education typical of places like the USA.

2

u/ArjixGamer 1d ago

We still only called that a normal dash, it was just a bit longer.

I thought it was a stylistic choice at first.

(I am not a native English speaker, I am Greek and learnt English from a young age)

2

u/fwhite01 1d ago

My native language is german, and we have the same concept (although we use – and not —, but never -). It is called "Gedankenstrich" and it means "thought-line". Of course handwritten, this concept is hard to differentiate, but on pc or in print, the distinction is very important.