I've been using the em dash online for decades. If AI is trained off of human-written posts (it is) and it's trained on sites I've posted on (it has), and if em dashes are a telltale sign AI wrote the post (seems that way), then logically speaking, I am partially to blame.

I'm still going to use them, though.

And I'm still going to teach people how to use them.

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 1 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'm curious, where are you getting your em dashes from?

My US 101 keyboard layout doesn't have it, do euro keyboard layouts with alt-gr have it relatively easily accessible? Presumably there's an alt+numpad combo, but that seems to be something that would interrupt the flow of typing quite a bit.

I've just discovered that if I go into the numeric/character section of my phone keyboard and long press the -, I can get —, but that's a long-winded way of getting them.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 1 points 7 months ago

On most linux desktops there is a "compose" key. Mine's set to capslock. So that and then pressing - twice is all it takes to produce one — which I will continue to do without hesitation. It's also good for typing things like ēö°«€½ and so on.

[–] blindsight@beehaw.org 1 points 7 months ago

Not parent poster, but I use AutoHotkey on my Windows machine. I use it all the time when grading math work, especially, since I have macros set up for all the most common math symbols (exponents, common fractions, ≠≈π√×÷¢–— etc.) I also have macros set up for common links I send out, an ISO date for today (mostly for naming files), and key sequences for some repetitive workflows.

The em dash was one of my first macros—and rightly so!

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago

On a Mac, it's pretty easy. Shift+Option+Dash. Option and Shift+Option plus a lot of keys does a lot of different symbols. With letters, you can hold the letter to open a menu of accents, so it's ridiculously easy for me to type Pokémon correctly. I hold the E and hit 2 to get the correct accent.

On a Windows computer, yes, it's an ALT code. ALT+0151. I've committed it to memory so it's nothing for me to type that if I'm using a Windows machine. 0150 is the en dash, which is a little shorter, and has a different function.

I'm on a US keyboard right now, but it's a Mac keyboard. I think the only difference is, instead of Ctrl-Win-Alt I have Ctrl-Opt-Cmd. And then Cmd-Opt-Fn-Ctrl right of the space bar. I think the rest is basically the same. Except my F keys do different things, like F3 isn't search (that would be CMD+F) it's Mission Control, kind of like Alt-Tab in Windows but way, way better.

On some phones you don't have to go into the number/symbol section. HOLD that button and it makes that keyboard pop up; now DRAG to the symbol or number you want and LET GO, it'll type it and bounce you right back to the ABC keyboard. You can also linger on a symbol to get the alt symbols. So, in practice, hold the ?123 or whatever key, drag up to dash, but don't let go, linger for a couple seconds, then slide over to the em dash and release. Should take you back to the ABC keyboard.