All rules

Too many dashes

no-em-dashon by default (info)Japanese / English

Too many dashes, which is also one of the better-known marks of generated text

Example

Flagged
The new prices — which start next month — will show on invoices. Payment is due — as before — at the end of the month.
What chaff prints
1:16 16 dashes per 1000 words (limit 8)
Fixed
The new prices start next month and will show on invoices. Payment is due at the end of the month, as before.
What chaff prints
no finding

The rule measures the whole document, so this example was tried with an ordinary passage (about 200 words) after it that gives chaff nothing to report.

How to fix

A comma or a pair of brackets usually reads better.

Why it matters

In English a dash is a legitimate tool, and a heavy hand with it is also one of the better-known marks of generated text. On its own it says little; it counts toward the composite signal. An en dash between two numbers (45–58, 10:00–10:15) marks a range and is not counted. Nor is a dash that ends a paragraph and introduces the list below it, as a colon would.

What it does not flag

Short documents are not measured. In English a dash is not called wrong; only a heavy hand is.

Turning it off or relaxing it

Silence this one spot (in the document)
<!-- stet: no-em-dash — reason -->
Relax it for the team (the reason is kept as a comment in chaff.yaml)
npx chaffjs relax no-em-dash --why "reason"
Turn it off for the team (chaff.yaml)
rules: no-em-dash: off
Technical details
Layer
L1
Status
stable
Severity
info
Languages
Japanese and English
Suited to
blog, business, technical, legal, docs, academic, literature, speech

Levels

Set a level for this rule under rules in chaff.yaml. With nothing set, it runs at the level its genre gives it (see By genre below).

strictup to 3 dashes per 1000 words
normalup to 8 dashes per 1000 words
relaxedup to 20 dashes per 1000 words

By genre

Runs by default in
technical/spec, technical/readme, blog/tech, blog/essay, blog/owned-media, business/proposal, business/report, business/email, business/press-release, business/meeting-notes, legal/contract, legal/statute, legal/judgment, legal/patent, docs/manual, docs/faq, docs/glossary, academic/paper, speech/address, speech/transcript
Turned off by the genre in
literature/fiction, literature/essay, literature/poetry, literature/play

Genres

Message

{density} dashes per 1000 words (limit {limit})

Rewrite depth (chaff fix-plan --depth): light — words and sentences; the structure and the voice stay

Sources

This page is built from the rule's definition file:packages/chaff/rules/no-em-dash.yaml