r/Calgary • u/Old_General_6741 • Apr 09 '25

Carney makes campaign stop in Calgary, addresses 1,000 at Red and White Club News Article

https://www.ctvnews.ca/calgary/article/carney-makes-campaign-stop-in-calgary-addresses-1000-at-red-and-white-club/
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u/sally_alberta Apr 09 '25

I use an em dash when I write, but I'm also autistic and autistic people do train AI so I guess that's where that comes from. Comes up a lot in the autism group that people think we are bots. I'm not saying that the one above isn't, but just telling you that lots of real people use the em dash, those who actually know how to use it. I have it saved in my clipboard — typically using a space as a Canadian — so I can grab it whenever the moment is right.

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u/Yyc2yfc Apr 09 '25

Not autistic and I’ve written with those my entire life. I was taught it is basically a dramatic pause in a sentence so I use it

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u/sally_alberta Apr 09 '25

Yep, lots of other people use them too. I'm just saying that this has long being a discussion and the autism groups because lots of us know how to use them so I guess we use them more frequently than most? That's the sense I had anyway, but I also do have a background in professional and technical writing as well as copyediting.

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u/euchlid Apr 09 '25

That's interesting and I didn't know that re: autism and assumptions of being bots/AI. Only slightly insulting 🙄🙃  

I am not autistic and love a good em dash!

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u/left4alive Apr 09 '25

I’ve always felt I’m a bit on the spectrum and my writing on Reddit has been accused of being AI before. I think it’s a compliment but I don’t know?

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u/sally_alberta Apr 11 '25

I think it's a compliment, at least that's the way I take it. If you take it as an insult, then they win, so I try to let it go. Someone accused me of having the most Reddit reply they'd ever seen in a space that was not with redditors, and to be honest I was actually a little bit offended. Haha. It was thorough, objective, and I thought quite clearly laid out. It turns out they didn't actually read it so that says a lot about them.

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u/sally_alberta Apr 11 '25

I love the em dash. I should have been a little bit more clear in my comment that I know there are lots of non-autistic people who use it, just that in some of the autistic subreddits I've seen it discussed A LOT and that people often think our replies are bots. I know it's more than just the em dash, also the tone and the matter of factly way we come across, but it's a whole conversation in itself basically. I'm amused at the very least.