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She also mentioned a more urgent priority, that her “birthdate be followed in the biographical index by an em dash, and then a blank space.”

In the first section, the em dash mimics breathing out.

I had never seen anything like that em dash, slicing the page with such a flourish, with such extension of thought.

After the Oxford comma debate and the death knell of the period, the latest mark to define and divide us — breaking up our thoughts, adding emphasis to our convictions, alternately vexing and delighting readers — is the em dash.

For some writers, the em dash is a vice that their editors occasionally forgive but more often forbid.