Madam Grammar

If you’re peeved that em dashes are now being associated with AI writing — you’re not alone. 🙂

em-dash-appreciation.org

Never mind, I lost again 🤣🤣🤣

It was the original, but if I get a reset on Dec. 1, I'll take it! 🙂

It's not even December and I've already lost Whamageddon...

Graphic with editing marks saying "ACES: The Society for Editing offers six scholarships for students pursuing a career in editing the written word. Deadline is Nov. 15. aceseditors.org/awards/scholarships"

Only a few days left to apply for @ACESediting scholarships! If you are – or you know – students who are interested in editing, check it out! aceseditors.org/awards/schol...

AI chatbots fail at accurate news, major study reveals – DW – 10/22/2025 AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Copilot routinely distort the news and struggle to distinguish facts from opinion. That's according to a major new study from 22 international public broadcasters, incl...

Another reason not to believe the hype: Four common AI tools misrepresent news content almost half the time.
www.dw.com/en/artificia...

I’m rooting for “slopocalypse.”

As a linguist, an interesting phenomenon I’ve noticed is a flurry of new coinages based on the new meaning of “slop” – unwanted, usually low-quality, AI-generated content.

AI is everywhere. Editors should be, too. - Poynter Human oversight is the only safeguard against AI’s errors, blind spots and fabrications reaching the public

A common guideline for professional AI use that I’ve seen is “Human first, human last.” That last human? It should be an editor.

I do love semicolons; I know not everyone does.
www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...

It's really fun! You'll love it!

Grammar quiz and flyer for the "Rebel with a Clause" movie

Excited to see the @grammartable.bsky.social movie in a theater, with people!

AI ‘Workslop’ Is Killing Productivity and Making Workers Miserable AI slop is taking over workplaces. Workers said that they thought of their colleagues who filed low-quality AI work as "less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before receiving the output."

A new study, based on a survey of 1,150 workers suggests that the injection of AI tools into the workplace has not resulted in a magic productivity boom and instead increased the amount of time that workers say they spend fixing low-quality AI-generated “work.”

🔗 www.404media.co/ai-workslop-...

Newspaper headline that says "Four butt heads in Gladstone race"

I was moving my "bad examples" file and this one fell out. Channel your inner Beavis, headline writers!

You sound like ChatGPT AI isn’t just impacting how we write — it’s changing how we speak and interact with others. And there’s only more to come.

"This isn’t a question about whether AI will continue shaping how we speak — because it will — but whether we’ll actively choose to preserve space for the verbal quirks and emotional messiness that make communication recognizably, irreplaceably human." @theverge.com
www.theverge.com/openai/68674...

The worst is when they knock down a perfect tomato and then take ONE BITE out of it. 🤦‍♀️

I had a Marvel Super Heroes one that ended up covered in those same Star Wars stickers!

This thread on AI-generated writing feedback is worth a read:

Job ad that says "We're hiring a English instructor"

I'd like to think they did this on purpose to get clicks, but I'd bet it was automated with no human in the loop. 🤦‍♀️

Just throwing the total out there because my students now think I'm exaggerating when I tell them about that class. Pre-world wide web, and you can bet there were no Cliff Notes for Aitmatov and Olesha.

I also read the book that became my all-time favorite, Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita."

Having a much-needed clear-out in my office and I ran across a college notebook (don't judge) that included notes from a class on the modern Russian novel. Friends, I read NINE WHOLE novels that semester in one class, including a doorstop by Solzhenitsyn.

Here’s the Punctuation Mark Gen Z Wants You to Stop Using—And It’s Not What You Think There's one punctuation mark Gen Z wants you to stop using. Here's what it is—and why it's falling out of favor.

The semicolon is having a moment – and getting some love! www.rd.com/article/punc...

12 Grammar Rules That Have Changed in the Last Decade Go ahead and split that infinitive! Writing is getting easier, thanks to these grammar rules that have changed with the times.

Is a language being used? Then it's changing. Grammar rules and guidelines change too, whether we like it or not.

www.rd.com/list/grammar...

Let's not write the obituary for the semicolon just yet.

"Remember: having a strong opinion about something isn’t the same as knowing something."
—Tom Nichols, “The Death of Expertise”

"AI development begins to resemble a maximalist game of telephone in which not only is the quality of the content being produced diminished, resembling less and less what it's originally supposed to be replacing, but in which the participants actively become stupider."

TIL (thanks to @mikecaulfield.bsky.social) that a phenomenon many of us in journalism have long observed has a name: Brandolini's Law, which states that "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandol...

I was preparing a presentation this morning; one of the phrases in it was “not to put too fine a point on it,” and a Certain Song has been stuck in my head all day. You’re welcome. #IYKYK

Yeah, this one is a doozy 🙄