Much Ado About Em Dashes -- No, Using Them Doesn't Mean AI Writes for Me

So now we have AI police who insist that anything with em dashes must be AI generated.

Honey, I’ve been using em dashes since before AI was even a twinkle in its creator’s eye, and as far as I’m concerned you’ll have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands — along with the Oxford comma — if you want me to stop using them. (See what I did there?)

It wasn’t my intention to write about AI again this week. Or em dashes. But there’s some idiocy going on right now with self-appointed trolls screaming that books are written by AI because they include em dashes, and I just can’t walk away.

So what’s an em dash anyway?

It’s the long dash used in a sentence to set off a phrase or clause, as opposed to the en dash, which is the short dash used as a hyphen. The “em” and “en” names are old-style printing measures. The first is the width of the capital letter “m,” and the second is the width of the letter “n.”

Em dashes have an illustrious history. Merriam-Webster says the em dash is used in place of a colon or semicolon. That’s true as far as it goes — which isn’t far enough. I use the em dash to add a little extra punch. According to Janice Hardy:

There's nothing like a dramatic pause to crank up the tension or surprise a reader, and there's nothing better to do that with than an em dash.

More recently — and more dramatically — Thao Thai insists that an em dash:

. . . it’s more than a punctuation mark. It’s an ethos, a state, a heady rush of feeling that tolerates no space between thought to thought. It’s an energy! (Exclamation point and italics all at once, for you rule-breakers out there.)

Take a look at this, and you’ll see what I mean about the em dash adding a little extra punch.

Betty replaced the pleasant and inoffensive Berber carpet with something that inconsiderate residents — Betty’s words — who wandered in from the pool with wet feet wouldn’t damage.

If you replace those em dashes with commas, it pretty much falls flat.

Betty replaced the pleasant and inoffensive Berber carpet with something that inconsiderate residents, Betty’s words, who wandered in from the pool with wet feet wouldn’t damage.

And that is why I’ll continue using em dashes in my writing. And in case it’s not obvious, I am definitely not — nor have I ever been — an AI! Never even played one on TV.

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What I’m Reading

Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day

Although it includes a mystery and is set during WWII, this book reads much more like contemporary fiction.

Bridget Kelly is a nurse trainee in London, during the blitz. She's lost her entire family, and although she's knowledgeable and competent, she carries out her duties without humanity. The matron wants her out, so she sends her to accompany a group of evacuee children to the countryside, along with a second nurse. (Over 800,000 children were evacuated.)

The evacuees' destination turns out to be Greenway, the holiday home of none other than Agatha Christie. (The house was, indeed, used to house a group of ten evacuee children and their attendants.) While they're living at Greenway, several local people die unexpectedly, and after Bridget sees fingermarks on the neck of a victim, she begins to question whether the deaths were, in fact, natural.

This is just one of several mysteries Bridget must unravel, not the least of which is how she can live and thrive in a world that no longer includes her family.

(If you want to know more about the evacuated children, check out this official International War Museum site.)

Welcome Home to Murder by Cindy Kline

Molly McGuire comes home to Ireland after her five-year marriage in the US screeches to a halt. She’s thrilled to be home, but she hasn’t outrun her childhood reputation as a klutz with her family and friends in the small town where she grew up.

Another thing that hasn’t changed is her relationship with Margery Denton, former mean girl and nemesis, and current girlfriend of her brother Dillon.

Then she stumbles — literally — over Margery’s dead body, and she and Dillon immediately become suspects. What makes it even worse is that the detective in charge of the case turns out to be the handsome stranger she flirted with on the plane on the way over.

Oops!

This is the first in what I expect will be an enjoyable and entertaining series.

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Notable Quotes

People don’t mind a rumor either, not when it fits the shape of the anger they already have and can’t find a place for.

- Death at Greenway by Lori Rader-Day

You can file both of this week’s quotes under “Sad, but True.” This one struck me as particularly apropros for the mess we’re in here in the US today.

They were probably having a grand old time talking about the meaning of life and the human condition. What a waste of time. Why couldn’t they just get on with it? The meaning of life was in the living of it.

- The Case of the Christie Conspiracy by Kelly Oliver

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Wise Words

I still haven’t found a quote with a misuse of words that I think will challenge my exceptionally bright readers. So we’re doing a slightly different thing this week. I’ll provide a quote, and some background about the book it’s from, and you tell me what’s wrong with it.

To be clear, I don’t read a book with the goal of seeing how many errors it contains. Far from it. But when they pop out at me, well, I notice them.

This little excerpt seems romantic, but something about it just felt off to me so I did some very superficial digging. Here’s all the background you need.

The narrator and her former boyfriend broke up seven years ago. The scene takes place in Starbucks in NYC. The book was published on January 1, 2024. What’s wrong/ out of place here?

Sliding one of the mugs over without missing a beat, he said, “Tall drip with two shots of espresso, oat milk, and one sugar.” The thoughtfulness of the gesture was one thing, but the fact that he hadn’t forgotten how I took my coffee caught me completely by surprise. “Thank you. I can’t believe you still know my order.”

- The Last Phone Booth in Manhattan by Beth Merlin and Danielle Modaferri

Unfortunately I can’t provide a handy dandy poll form for this without giving the answer away. If you have an answer, you can leave it in the Comments below, or email me.

I’ll share the solution next week.