A simpler solution may be to use an en dash, even though they are not interchangeable and em dashes are the proper punctuation for parenthetical phrases. As a typography pedant, I’m annoyed that LLMs have forced us to talk about this.
I think this is more of a style issue than one of correctness: lots of high-quality typeset output has used em dashes for parenthetical phrasing and plenty has used (spaced) en dashes. Bringhurst is a partisan for the en dash, for example, saying that "The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for the best text faces." (/Elements/ version 2.5, p.80).
Of course, if we collectively shifted to the spaced en dash then LLMs would eventually follow; it's not clear to me that any simple and deliberate sign of humanity could remain exclusive given the incentives for machines to replicate it.
Anecdotally, at universities now, it seems like across domains, iPads are increasingly popular as ways to take notes and study. I wonder what the business model is here given their similar use cases with the neo for the student.
As a typography nerd, I’m upset that my pedantism may get me labelled as a bot. (Yes, I just used a typographic apostrophe instead of a straight single quote.)
Yeah, same. I use an extended keyboard layout on my PC. I'm so used to it I have to actively decide against using proper quotes and dashes and whatnot. I don't bother on mobile, though.
Every time someone states they stop reading when they encounter proper typography, I feel attacked.
There was a game in the early '80s called Microsurgeon where you piloted a robot probe into a body to cure it of diseases. It was armed with an array of tools, one of which was ultrasound that you could use to destroy cancer. I wonder how long this idea has been around for.
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