Summer’s Hottest Controversy — The Em Dash aka That Long Dash ChatGPT Loves

Why is ChatGPT so psyched on the “—”? Because it’s a Large Language Model. It was designed to be conversational. The Turing test is literally: can a computer pass as conversational without the human on the other side knowing? We’ve arguably already achieved this.

Good copywriters know when a client asks for a “conversational tone” we need to prepare to release the em dashes. Sure you can rewrite a sentence without using the em dash, but suddenly that sentence seems more formal.

The em dash links ideas that might not be grammatically tied together but make emotional or rhetorical sense in a conversation. If a period is a handshake and a semicolon is a nod, the em dash is the friend who leans in and whispers something juicy before the thought is even done.

ChatGPT was trained on a massive amount of web content: blogs, articles, newsletters, Reddit posts, social media threads, fiction, and more. In modern digital writing, especially informal or conversational writing, the em dash has become a staple.

It mimics the rhythm of real speech. Large language models are rewarded for generating human-sounding text, so the em dash helps simulate that little spark of unpredictability that makes writing feel alive. 

So should you stop using it? No. But do tread lightly and limit yourself to once per paragraph, per page, per piece, or whatever makes sense in context. Unless you’re Emily Dickinson, you probably don’t need half a dozen.

What punctuation can you use instead? Try a colon, especially if it’s a list. Or a classic comma may do the trick, especially if it's just for a pause. Finally, you can give up and make it two sentences. The goal isn’t to sound like a robot that learned to talk — it’s to sound like you.