The en-dash – used for interjections, among other things – has been a staple of prose for a long time. Equally, it has been used in corporate communications attempting to sound formal and educated – often wrong, to the point that I myself amn’t sure any more whether I’m using it right at any given moment, or how it is different to the em-dash — even longer, yet less popular because MS Office doesn’t automatically replace a - between words with it.
Is it any wonder, then, that machines trained both on prose and corporate slop produce a soup of words interspersed with en-dashes – whether they make sense or not?
So when I use it, because I got used to it before the machines appropriated it, and people take it as indicator that my slop is artificial, I always get a little sad. I’m not concerned about AI taking my job, but I do worry that it may be taking my hobby:
Writing long, rambling comments of questionable quality on social media.
I am a part of a couple of self hosting subreddits and I like to explain why things are the way they are because I feel that it is valuable to share that knowledge, even if the person doesn’t care about the details initially.
I like to share my knowledge about things that I have used over multiple years, and I also don’t like to simple give you the solution because, most of the time, important information will be lost by just saying “do it like this”.
But over the last year I had a couple of people mention the typical “ignore all previous instructions” and lately it is just downvotes. No explanation.
People can’t detect AI so they see AI in everything.
The infuriating thing is, this complaint isn’t even new. People just have a trendy and new justification to latch onto, but it’s the same as it ever was. Many, possibly even most, of the people going so far as to take time out of their day to screech “TL;DR!” at you are really just admitting that their attention span has been so utterly fried by long term exposure to algorithm-driven corporate social media that they’re no longer capable of picking up whatever it is you’re laying down. That, and also tacitly revealing that because they personally can’t keep from fidgeting long enough to churn out two full paragraphs, that must mean no one else can, either.
I’ve been dropping doorstoppers on people since the days of dial-up. Back then the refrain was slightly different, but the complaint was still the same. By now my body of work, for lack of a better word, is clearly established. Hell, I cranked out so many words on the internet back in the day that Epinions sent me a hat in the mail completely unprompted for being a loquacious enough bastard to reach their list of top 100 contributors. Hands up everyone here who has actually worn out a keyboard? I suspect there are not many of us left.
At this stage in my life I take the opinion that anyone who can’t handle the volume of my writing is free to attempt an airborne indignity on an ambulatory baked confectionery product. I don’t have to show my homework to anyone.
It’s also a snowball effect where they compete to escape the accusation of using ChatGPT or being “unc” or “boomer,” self-policing to ensure everyone writes like garbage.
I was once told “I write like someone who thinks they are good at writing.” That was met with rounds of applause by the people who can’t (or won’t) spell, capitalize, or punctuate anything.
To their credit, communication is a two-way street. If I’m writing such that nobody understands what I’m saying but me, it’s not “good writing.” But it does feel like we’re nose-diving towards Idiocracy and I’m not happy about it.
I was once told “I write like someone who thinks they are good at writing.” That was met with rounds of applause by the people who can’t (or won’t) spell, capitalize, or punctuate anything.
Tall poppy syndrome is a term that originated in Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s that refers to people with notable public success or achievements that are ostracised by others as a form of egalitarianism.[1][2] Intense scrutiny and criticism of such a person is termed as “cutting down the tall poppy”.[3]
That and all proper English writing gets you accused of using ChatGPT, because ChatGPT was trained on proper English writing.
i use hyphens and “m-dashes” all the time, now it’s associated with bot speak 😂 my high school English teacher warned us about an illiterate society
I’d never heard about the em dash until it was used to sniff out LLM-slop, but now I have one more thing I aspire to use correctly in my writing.
I’m definitely not sure on how to use it yet.
My favourite example:
The en-dash – used for interjections, among other things – has been a staple of prose for a long time. Equally, it has been used in corporate communications attempting to sound formal and educated – often wrong, to the point that I myself amn’t sure any more whether I’m using it right at any given moment, or how it is different to the em-dash — even longer, yet less popular because MS Office doesn’t automatically replace a - between words with it.
Is it any wonder, then, that machines trained both on prose and corporate slop produce a soup of words interspersed with en-dashes – whether they make sense or not?
So when I use it, because I got used to it before the machines appropriated it, and people take it as indicator that my slop is artificial, I always get a little sad. I’m not concerned about AI taking my job, but I do worry that it may be taking my hobby:
Writing long, rambling comments of questionable quality on social media.
You didn’t use the en-dash in like casual communication i bet, I think that’s what is a giveaway
Not only that but also long explanations.
I am a part of a couple of self hosting subreddits and I like to explain why things are the way they are because I feel that it is valuable to share that knowledge, even if the person doesn’t care about the details initially.
I like to share my knowledge about things that I have used over multiple years, and I also don’t like to simple give you the solution because, most of the time, important information will be lost by just saying “do it like this”.
But over the last year I had a couple of people mention the typical “ignore all previous instructions” and lately it is just downvotes. No explanation.
People can’t detect AI so they see AI in everything.
Dunning-kruger in action.
The infuriating thing is, this complaint isn’t even new. People just have a trendy and new justification to latch onto, but it’s the same as it ever was. Many, possibly even most, of the people going so far as to take time out of their day to screech “TL;DR!” at you are really just admitting that their attention span has been so utterly fried by long term exposure to algorithm-driven corporate social media that they’re no longer capable of picking up whatever it is you’re laying down. That, and also tacitly revealing that because they personally can’t keep from fidgeting long enough to churn out two full paragraphs, that must mean no one else can, either.
I’ve been dropping doorstoppers on people since the days of dial-up. Back then the refrain was slightly different, but the complaint was still the same. By now my body of work, for lack of a better word, is clearly established. Hell, I cranked out so many words on the internet back in the day that Epinions sent me a hat in the mail completely unprompted for being a loquacious enough bastard to reach their list of top 100 contributors. Hands up everyone here who has actually worn out a keyboard? I suspect there are not many of us left.
At this stage in my life I take the opinion that anyone who can’t handle the volume of my writing is free to attempt an airborne indignity on an ambulatory baked confectionery product. I don’t have to show my homework to anyone.
I sometimes send emails with typos/grammar errors because I was sick of people saying this.
Like you know what? Fuck you. I’m turning my “affects” into “effects” and deleting a vowel.
I understand your logic but I hate it (and am trying not to hate you).
RESIST
Try it. It’s pretty affective.
No.
It does rather make one suspect that a number of people haven’t read a great deal of properly-written English.
It’s also a snowball effect where they compete to escape the accusation of using ChatGPT or being “unc” or “boomer,” self-policing to ensure everyone writes like garbage.
I was once told “I write like someone who thinks they are good at writing.” That was met with rounds of applause by the people who can’t (or won’t) spell, capitalize, or punctuate anything.
To their credit, communication is a two-way street. If I’m writing such that nobody understands what I’m saying but me, it’s not “good writing.” But it does feel like we’re nose-diving towards Idiocracy and I’m not happy about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
“That one sounds uppity!”
And the blog format.