[sodacanner]

It really is unfortunate that such a fun piece of punctuation has been effectively gutted. This isn't even really limited to just the em-dash, but I don't know if there's another example of a corporation (or set of them) having such a massive impact on grammar and writing as OpenAI and their ilk have.

Entire sentence structures have been effectively blacklisted from use. It's repulsive.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Surely AI engine developers will notice patterns in which humans identify them, and change their behavior to avoid detection.

You’d think ethically leaving it in would be better. But we’re talking about big tech companies here.

[smallmancontrov]

It's not just repulsive — it's the complete destruction of tool through intense overuse!

Speaking of overusing something until it becomes cringe, has anyone shown their kids Firefly? Does it still hold up after the Joss Whedon signature bathos (and other tics) became a tentpole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and created an abundance of cultural antibodies?

[cmrdporcupine]

My kids liked it when they were younger teens. But we'd also already been through Buffy, which they liked.

There were a few times we cringed a bit (with both shows) but overall stood the test of time. I didn't watch Buffy & Angel first time around, so it was a bit of a cultural moment I got caught up on. And it was nice to revisit Firefly, the little bit of it we got.

[mike_hearn]

The writing of Firefly was top notch and still holds up great. The MCU tried to imitate the style and mostly failed. But it helped that Firefly was much less overwrought in general.

[smallmancontrov]

Glad to hear it, thanks!

[mrec]

I don't have kids myself, but friends have shown Firefly to theirs and I'm happy to report that it still holds up. There's hope for the future yet.

[smallmancontrov]

Cool, glad to hear it!

[Imustaskforhelp]

> It really is unfortunate that such a fun piece of punctuation has been effectively gutted. This isn't even really limited to just the em-dash, but I don't know if there's another example of a corporation (or set of them) having such a massive impact on grammar and writing as OpenAI and their ilk have.

Well, to be fair Gen-z slangs also have a massive impact. My generation sometimes point blank said to me that they didn't have the attention span to read my sentence :/

Definitely picked up a few slangs along the way now. I had to somehow toggle a switch between how I write on HN/how I write with my friends the first few times and I write pretty informally in HN, but its that you got to be saying lowk bussin rizz 67 to make sense.

My friends who use insta literally had Abbreivations which were of 9 letter words in my own language that the insta community of my nation's gen-z sort of made.

Although I would agree that we haven't seen a whole unicode being thrown this way in ALL generations (I feel like universally everyone treats em-dashes as something written by AI or definitely get an AI alert)

But I think that 67 is something that atp maybe even most adults might have gotten exposed to which has probably changed the meaning of number.

[mghackerlady]

The attention span thing is so real. I'll post a 2 sentence response to a comment and get a "I'm not reading allat"

[NetMageSCW]

What’s repulsive is the people who comment incorrectly based on that punctuation or grammar use and the ones who then kowtow to public opinion as if it matters.

There is no such thing as blacklisted by other commenters.