This content originally appeared on TPGi and was authored by Ricky Onsman
This post was prompted by some discussion at TPGi about the use of em dash punctuation, on two fronts:
- Is the use of the em dash making our posts look like they were generated by A.I.?
- How do screen readers convey em dashes?
If, at this point, your reaction is “What’s an em dash?”, jump to the section in this post that explains the difference between the two kinds of dashes, hyphens, and the minus symbol. Otherwise, read on.
Is the use of the em dash making our posts look like they were generated by A.I.?
There seems to be a general belief that generative A.I., particularly ChatGPT, use em dashes more than most human writers.
There are theories that text generated with ChatGPT uses em dashes at about twice the rate of most human writers, i.e., 3-4 per 1,000 words as opposed to 1-2 per 1,000 words.
Even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean that the use of em dashes is a giveaway for A.I.-generated content. The fact is, lots of humans use em dashes.
If you want to dig into this, a good place to start is The Em Dash Dilemma: How a Punctuation Mark Became AI’s Stubborn Signature by Brent Csutoras, which in turn links to some good reading.
But is the em dash actually a reliable way to tell if something was written by A.I.? Not really. If you dig into actual research, it’s clear em dashes aren’t a real giveaway. They show up because humans trained the models that way.
Bearing in mind that there are no circumstances in which an em dash must be used, any writer can choose to not use them. Often, a colon, a semicolon, or parentheses can be used to the same effect.
And, really, if you use an en dash or a hyphen instead, very few readers will notice and no-one will object. So, if you fear your use of em dashes characterizes you as a robot, you can choose not to use them, but you shouldn’t feel compelled either way.
How do screen readers convey em dashes?
Screen readers by default tend to announce that an em dash is present by announcing it as “em dash”, as is the case with a lot of punctuation marks. Users can, however, change their screen reader verbosity settings to adjust this.
By default, screen readers do the same with, for example, parentheses, announcing “left parenthesis” and “right parenthesis” without changing the tone of the parenthetical text. That’s without even getting into the differences between parentheses, brackets, and braces.
A person reading aloud a passage of text that has an interjection conveyed by em dashes will use pause, intonation and inflection to convey that it’s an interjection, differentiating it from the rest of the text.
To some extent, screen reader verbosity settings can account for this, and that comes down to user choice.
A major consideration is whether any of this matters to screen reader users. A check with four screen readers users I know indicates it does not. One liked being told exactly what was on the page and the others didn’t find the announcement of punctuation marks objectionable. The common response was, “I’m used to it.”
Ultimately, this is an issue for screen reader developers, vendors, and users, not for writers. It’s fruitless to try to write for screen readers, especially punctuation.
Having said that, there’s no harm in choosing to write “1914 to 1918” if that suits your style, to avoid having it announced as “1914 dash 1918” or even “1914 minus 1918”.
The upshot
We’ve added guidance to our style guide on what em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens are and do, how to use them, and how to not use them if you don’t want to.
As far as as A.I. and screen readers go, our advice is to ignore them. Write for readers, and let the machines worry about themselves.
The background
From the earliest days of printing text on paper, punctuation has been a topic of discussion and disagreement.
Since the advent of computers and the use of text on screens, the discussion and disagreement has increased.
So, what is the correct usage?
Let’s roll out the standby caveats, “It’s complicated”, and “It depends”.
The reality is that there is no definitive, globally accepted set of rules. Just as with spelling, punctuation usage varies from country to country, from publisher to publisher, and from government to government. FWIW, my list of go-to resources for good writing is at the end. They do not agree with each other, and often contradict each other.
What are we talking about here?
- en dash
- em dash
- hyphen
- minus symbol
en dash
What is it?
An en dash is a typographical horizontal line or bar set at the middle of the font height, and is usually what is meant when the term “dash” is used.
The en dash is the shorter of the two dashes, named that way because in print the width of the en dash equates to the space taken up by the letter N, whichever font is being used.
On screens, en dashes are half the width of the font height.
How do you make it?
The en dash can be generated with the HTML entity –, the HTML code –, the hex code –, or Unicode U+2013.
There’s no standard keyboard key for the en dash. In some word processing software, typing a hyphen and adding a space after it converts the hyphen to an en dash, or at least a character that is almost identical to an en dash and can serve the same purpose.
On Mac keyboards Option + - produces an en dash. For Windows on a keyboard with a numeric keypad press Alt + 0 1 5 0.
What’s it for?
Although the use of en dashes is often very indiscriminate, it’s technically best suited to expressing a range of numbers or dates, such as 4-5 or 1918-1926.
En dashes are also used to turn two nouns into a coordinate noun, such as “the Murray-Darling river basin”. Each noun retains its meaning and joining the two does not produce a compound noun, it just shows that the two nouns form a coordinated or sequential concept.
Because the en dash has this joining function, it’s best to leave it unspaced. However, the en dash can also be used in the same way as an em dash, acting as a separator of content. When it’s used in this way, it should spaced so as not to convey the joining or coordinating function.
“Student-teacher relationships” refers to relationships between student-teachers, people studying to be teachers.
“Student – teacher relationships” refers to relationships between students and their teachers.
em dash
What is it?
An em dash is another typographical horizontal line or bar, and is usually what’s meant when the term “long dash” is used.
The em dash is longer than the en dash and, as you might have guessed, it gets its name from being the width of the letter M.
On screens, an em dash is the same width as the font height, whatever the font.
You’ll note that em is also used as a unit of size in screen typography, following the same principle of relative size and thus more favored than the fixed size pixel for responsive web design. Curiously, en did not graduate from print to HTML along with the em, and is not recognized as a CSS sizing unit.
How do you make it?
The em dash can be generated with the HTML entity —, the HTML code —, the hex code —, or Unicode U+2014.
There’s no standard keyboard key for the em dash. In some word processing software, typing a double hyphen produces a single character that is almost identical to an em dash and can serve the same purpose.
On Mac keyboards Option + Shift + - produces an em dash. For Windows on a keyboard with a numeric keypad press Alt + 0 1 5 1.
What’s it for?
The em dash is used to indicate content that is conceptually separated from surrounding content, or represents a temporary break in the overall content theme. It’s generally used at each end of an interjection to convey an interruption to the flow of content.
“He set out to prove — not that any proof was required — that he knew what he was doing”.
Whether spaces are placed around the em dash or not is a purely stylistic choice. Unspaced em dashes have the same meaning as spaced em dashes. The choice is usually based on available space and aesthetic effect. However, once made, the choice should be consistent. Don’t switch from unspaced em dashes to spaced em dashes in one item of content.
“He set out to prove—not that any proof was required—that he knew what he was doing”.
When interrupting content, the role of the em dash is interchangeable with the use of parentheses.
Three boys’ names — Tom, Dick, and Harry — are regarded as the most common.
Three boys’ names (Tom, Dick, and Harry) are regarded as the most common.
If one concept comes after another concept rather than interrupting it, an em dash often has the same role as a colon.
Three boys’ names are regarded as the most common — Tom, Dick, and Harry.
Three boys’ names are regarded as the most common: Tom, Dick, and Harry.
hyphen
What is it?
A hyphen is another typographical horizontal line or bar, shorter than an en dash.
The name comes Greek via Latin, a combination of words meaning “under” and “one” to form the compound word “huphen”, meaning “together”.
How do you make it?
The hyphen can be generated with the HTML entity ‐, the HTML code ‐, the hex code ‐, or Unicode U+2010.
The hyphen does have a key on a standard keyboard, right next to the 0 key on the top row. This key is often called the hyphen-minus key, because it’s commonly used when either a hyphen or a minus symbol is required.
What’s it for?
The main role of the hyphen is to join two concepts together to have a single meaning. This includes bringing two words together to form a compound noun, such as when “extra” and “marital” are hyphenated to in reference to “extra-marital sex”, a concept with a different meaning to “extra marital sex”.
Hyphens can also be used to clarify the meaning of a concept by acting as a separator. For example, the meaning of “unionized” is changed when it’s hyphenated to become “un-ionized”.
Another common use of a hyphens is when a word is made to wrap from one line to the next rather than create a large gap by moving the entire word to the next line. In this case, hyphens are typically inserted between syllables.
When he reached the end of the very long line, he found himself to be quite discom-
bobulated by all the content he was facing.
For screens, the CSS property hyphens can be applied to manage how words should be hyphenated when text wraps across multiple lines. It can prevent hyphenation entirely, hyphenate at manually-specified points within the text, or let the browser automatically insert hyphens where appropriate.
minus symbol
What is it?
A minus symbol is another typographical horizontal line or bar, the same size as a hyphen, usually set somewhat higher in relative font height to match the height of the crossbar of the plus symbol.
How do you make it?
The hyphen key on a standard keyboard, right next to the 0 key on the top row, is often called the hyphen-minus key and used to produce a minus symbol but this is actually a hyphen and not a true minus symbol. Using a hyphen instead of a minus symbol in mathematical expressions can lead to mispronunciation by screen readers.
The minus symbol can be generated with the HTML entity −, the HTML code −, the hex code −, or Unicode U+2212.
What’s it for?
Minus symbols are intended for use in mathematical expressions, chiefly either to represent the action of subtracting one value from another, or to identify a number with a value less than zero.
So, what’s all the fuss about?
Good question.
Since there are no hard and fast rules on their use that affect meaning, and the most authoritative references agree to disagree on which dash to use — or even whether to use one at all — you could say this is all a bit of a storm in a tea-cup — or teacup.
My reference sources
- The Associated Press Stylebook
- Australian Government Style Manual
- The Cambridge Guide to English Usage
- The Chicago Manual of Style
- The Elements of Style (Strunk & White)
- Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage
- Grammarly
- The Guardian Style Guide
- Merriam-Webster
- The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage
- Oxford Style Manual
- UK Government Digital Service style guide
- US Digital Style Guide
- HTML Punctuation
Image credit: Stefanschurr226
The post On Dashes, A.I., and Screen Readers appeared first on TPGi.
This content originally appeared on TPGi and was authored by Ricky Onsman
Ricky Onsman | Sciencx (2025-08-13T13:59:32+00:00) On Dashes, A.I., and Screen Readers. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/08/13/on-dashes-a-i-and-screen-readers/
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