# reclaiming em-en dashing back from AI and lowercasing

DevFeed: [reclaiming em-en dashing back from AI and lowercasing](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/reclaiming-em-en-dashing-back-from-ai-and-lowercasing-25316.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://kau.sh/blog/reclaim-dash-lowercase-from-ai/>)

Author: Kaushik Gopal

Published: 2025-07-28T03:18:36Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Kaushik Gopal's Site](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/kaushik-gopal-s-site.md>)

Topics: [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>), [ChatGPT](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/chatgpt.md>)

Tags: [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [blog](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/blog.md>), [chatgpt](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/chatgpt.md>), [writing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/writing.md>)

## AI overview

The author argues that em and en dashes and predominant lowercase writing were longstanding personal stylistic choices rather than signs of AI-generated text. They cite an em dash used in a 2017 blog post, propose spacing around dashes as a distinguishing choice, and explain that lowercase typing helps accommodate a wrist strain and keyboard limitations.

## Source excerpt

AI is transforming our tools, our writing, and -- apparently now -- our sense of typographic originality. But there are two quirks of my writing that now get me side-eye from friends: em and en dashes predominant lowercasing I know, i know. nobody likes the guy who says he liked the band before they got famous. but here we are. I was lowercasing and em-en dashing before AI and i'd like to claim this back please. my friends roll their eyes when i try. even the polite ones. so, since i can't get a word in at dinner, i'll do it here. But first, receipts... ## I need to build some credibility before I attempt to explain myself. one of the advantages of writing this blog for some time now: I can do a quick git log -S1 and show you some early mention of these "quirks": The earliest post I have here using an em dash is from 2017. blog post from 2017 where i use an em dash 😎. click for proof might I remind you, ChatGPT was introduced to this world in 2022. And now the more egregious one that Sam Altman is attempting to rob me of2: from an old version of my blog from 11 years ago Reclaiming my quirks # em & en dashes ## listen folks, -- & - are beautiful characters that the english language provides us. Strunk & White, who wrote a once seminal guide have this to say: A dash is a mark of separation stonger than a comma, less formal than a colon, and more relaxed than parentheses... we cannot let the AI overlords claim these characters theirs. I have a proposal: Put spaces around your em and en dashes. you see when AI genereates text, it tends to do the typographically standard thing--not pad the dash with spaces, like i just demonstrated. but if you did pad it with spaces -- it becomes a stylistic choice, and adds visual rhythm to boot. we can now use em and en dashes and prove that ChatGPT didn't write this! about the lowercasing ## I've mentioned my rsi before and even the crazy keyboard hacks to help me with it. one important one is mapping caps-lock to escape. if i have to capital