Slapdashdash
In a sense, the emdash can be seen as slapdash punctuation: it’s often used when the GPT doesn’t want to bother with more precise choices like commas, colons, or parentheses.
It can signal:
a sudden change in thought (which a comma or period might also handle),
an inserted phrase (which parentheses could do),
or a dramatic pause (which a colon or ellipsis might express more clearly).
GPT sometimes reach for the emdash because it’s fast, flexible, and visually striking — but that very flexibility makes it prone to abuse. It becomes a lazy substitute for clearer structure.
So yes, the emdash, especially in excess, has a slapdash quality: convenient, unrefined, and often masking poor syntax or half-formed thinking.
offshore westerly 