Em Dashes are Fucking Amazing

By Sasha Putilin | Psychotechnology | July 19, 2026

I have a profound, unfiltered love for the em dash.

I couldn't care less about the opinions of the "AI-hunting" crowd — those people who scrutinize every sentence with a magnifying glass to find "bot-like" patterns. I also don't give a damn that AI learned to use em dashes before the internet's resident troglodytes did.

Creating a genuine, hand-crafted em dash isn't rocket science. For those on a Mac, the secret is simply: Option + Shift + -.

The Pure Joy of the Dash

There is no feeling quite like writing a sentence and realizing it needs a sudden caveat, a clarification, or an addendum — but you want to keep it all within the same thought rather than starting a new sentence. The em dash is your best friend here.

It allows you to package ideas together neatly. Using em dashes makes the act of writing feel like assembling Lego bricks.

Em Dashes vs. Brackets

You can swap out brackets for em dashes — just like this — and simply keep flowing with your thoughts.

• Brackets are for the timid; they are the punctuation equivalent of raising your hand in a meeting and saying, "This might be a stupid question."
• Parentheticals are a whisper: "Sorry, don't mind me, I'll be quick."

Sometimes, you just need a dramatic pause. After all, punctuation was originally designed as a guide for breathing and pausing.

Grammar and punctuation rules weren't handed down by God in a final, immutable form. People just wrote things, and eventually, the most common patterns were codified into rules.

Therefore, the em dash is the most natural way to signal a significant break in a thought.

The Punctuation Hierarchy

While I appreciate the semicolon — that little guy who exists in the limbo between a new sentence and a continuing one — most of the time, an em dash does the job better.

As for ellipses, they are for idling. I prefer to catapult my readers to the peak of the experience. An em dash is like a high-speed elevator in a Tokyo skyscraper — it gets you to the top floor in seconds.

Outsmarting the Nitpickers

"But will people think I'm a bot if I use them?"

If you are writing for some internet stranger who spends their life hunting for em dashes, I have a solution: AP-style em dashes. These are separated from the surrounding text by spaces.

AI Style: "like—this, word—word"
AP Style: "like — this, word — word"

Every dash in this article follows the AP style. By doing this, you can actually out-nitpick your critics by explaining that you are using a specific stylistic choice that AI doesn't typically default to.

But honestly? Maybe just stop caring what random people on the internet think.

Final Verdict

If your writing is devoid of em dashes, I'm not reading it. You are now officially obligated to use them for my personal enjoyment.

• Start using em dashes.
• Stop fearing the AI-detectors.
• Embrace the dramatic pause.

PS: If you want my professional, personalized guidance on mastering punctuation, my rate is: $\text{Cost} = \$175 \times \text{hours}$

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Discussion

Fernando: Nice AI-generated post. (Liked by Sasha Putilin)

Matthew A. Pagan: (I am embarrassed by all my thoughts) but I am pushing past it. (Liked by Sasha Putilin)