[codpiece]

Em dashes —once the sign of a sophisticated writer— were prominent in The New York Times.

[anigbrowl]

s/sophisticated writer/Mac user. It was a pain to type them on Windows so most people just used the regular dash - accessible on any keyboard.

[codpiece]

I had no idea! I was a typesetter, we would have to manually create them using keyboard shortcuts on both systems.

[yodon]

Microsoft word would add them for you long before AI

[sli]

Entering two dashes on the iOS keyboard inserts an emdash, I would use them frequently when I had an iPhone.