In an article in the Globe and Mail this morning, I saw the word em dash for the first time. It is a punctuation mark - a dash between words to show a big pause in a sentence or to emphasize the end of a sentence. It is named after being the length of an M.
You can ask the AI overview on Google what the signs are that AI (ChatGPT) wrote something. The tell-tale signs, giveaway signs, clear signs, surefire signs. Are there 5, 7, or 13 signs that ChatGPT was used to write something? Now there's another one.
The Globe and Mail today highlighted that one of the signs is too many em dashes in sentences. The article was about the impact of AI on changing writing style and grammar usage and what might happen over time. I had better catch up to what is currently the state of things in order to know where it is going.
Here is the Punctuation Marks List
Quotation Marks
Apostrophe
Hyphen
Brackets
Parentheses
En Dash
Em Dash
Ellipsis
Comma
Colon
Semicolon
Exclamation Mark/Exclamation Point
Question Mark
Full Stop/Period
And surprise! Now I know what an En Dash is. It indicates a range of numbers, 5-14, for example. I don't remember being interested in grammar when I was young. It seems quite fascinating now that it is under duress.
This was a real estate sign all peeling away. This is an en dash - it was between the numbers and and 9.
