The em-dash “—” is a trusty steed for writers, used structure to a sentence where a comma might not suffice.

It has been said to be a sign of plagiarism using generative AI, because most computer keyboards do not have the em-dash, and so most people wouldn’t type with them naturally. That said, if a text has been written using an editor like Microsoft Word then the em-dash might have been autocorrected into place over a hyphen.

Personally, I quite like the dash. While I was once oblivious to the difference between a hyphen “-” and an em-dash “—”, the recent discussion around AI writing has made me realise that I should be using the em-dash (if we’re approaching syntax prescriptively). The hyphen is for compound words, like em-dash. The em-dash, on the other hand, is used to separate clauses.

Here’s how to type the em-dash (and other special characters) in Linux Mint — specifically version 22.1 Cinnamon — which is the OS I am currently using.

Instructions

1. Open: System Settings → Keyboard → Layouts → Options

2. Expand: “Position of Compose Key”

3. Select a compose key.

I chose ‘Right Ctrl’. Close the window when done.

4. Type an em-dash:

Press <compose key> - - -

(That is, press the compose key, then press the hyphen key three times.)

You do not need to hold the compose key down while typing the hyphens.

To type an en-dash, use: <compose key> - - .

Some other useful compose sequences:

The full list of compose sequences can be found at /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose