So, yesterday I stumbled across a post—because clearly, the internet is where all rational and reasonable discourse happens—about punctuation. Not just any punctuation, mind you, but the kind that makes people grab their torches and pitchforks and scream, “This was written by AI!” Apparently, good punctuation is now suspect. Like, if you know where to stick a semi-colon, you’re suddenly not human anymore. What a time to be alive.

Now, let me tell you something: grammar and punctuation are not new concepts. They’re not some sinister creation of the digital overlords. Microsoft Word has been nudging us about comma splices and suggesting synonyms since the dawn of time—or at least since the floppy disk era. Did anyone back then say, “Oh no, Microsoft Word is clearly taking over the human race because it told me to use ‘affect’ instead of ‘effect’”? Nope. We just grumbled, clicked ‘Ignore,’ and moved on with our lives.

And books! Let’s talk about books. When was the last time someone picked up a Stephen King novel, squinted at the impeccable punctuation, and went, “Ah yes, clearly the work of an AI!” Answer: never. Nobody does this. If anything, we admire it. We’re like, “Wow, this guy really knows where to put his apostrophes.” Or maybe we don’t think that because normal people don’t obsess over apostrophes. Either way, good grammar and punctuation used to be a sign that someone cared about their work, not that they outsourced it to Skynet.

By the time I got to junior high, I was already a punctuation snob. Not in a hoity-toity, monocle-wearing way, but in the sense that I realized it made life easier. Like, do you want to read a sentence that says, “Let’s eat Grandma,” or one that says, “Let’s eat, Grandma”? Exactly. Punctuation saves lives. So, I became finicky. I embraced the Oxford comma. I learned the difference between an em dash and an en dash. Did people call me a nerd? Yes. But did they understand my sentences? Also yes.

And now, somehow, using proper punctuation is a crime. A red flag. A sign that my soul has been uploaded into a machine because heaven forbid I actually care about clarity. Look, if I stopped using punctuation, my writing would look like that one friend’s text messages—the one who sends you a paragraph that’s just one, long, endless sentence with no breaks and you have to read it three times just to figure out where one thought ends and the next begins. Nobody wants that. Not even that friend.

Here’s what really gets me: the irony. The biggest giveaway that something was written by AI isn’t perfect punctuation—it’s the opposite. It’s the repetition, the weird syntax, the overuse of words like “thus” and “furthermore” as if it’s auditioning to be the next Mr. Darcy. Plus, don’t even get me started on the blatant misuse of “their” and “there.” If you want to accuse something of being AI, maybe look at the piece that starts every paragraph with “Additionally,” and ends with a random, out-of-place sentence about pizza. Spoiler alert: it’s probably not the person who knows how to use a colon correctly.

And yes, I get it. AI is being misused. People are churning out spammy content that looks like it was written by a robot with a thesaurus addiction. But not everyone is doing that. Some of us—brace yourselves—actually like writing. Some of us enjoy the process of crafting sentences and finding the right words and yes, even making sure our commas are in the right place. It’s not because we want to impersonate a machine; it’s because we want people to enjoy what we write. And enjoying something means being able to read it without feeling like you’re deciphering a cipher.

Honestly, if this anti-punctuation crusade keeps up, maybe I should just lean into it. I’ll write everything in one massive block of text with no capitalization, no periods, and definitely no commas. Wanna read my latest story? Good luck! Hope you brought a magnifying glass and a bucket of patience. Or better yet, I’ll sprinkle in random punctuation for fun. Periods in the middle of sentences. Exclamation marks where they don’t belong. Maybe even a forward slash or two. Is this what you want? IS IT?

Look, here’s the deal: humans make mistakes. We’ve been making them since the beginning of time. Cavemen probably drew their mammoths with extra legs by accident. And sure, now we have tools to help us fix those mistakes—spellcheck, grammar suggestions, that squiggly green line that nags us when we forget a verb. But the tools don’t do the work for us. They just nudge us in the right direction, like a friend who whispers, “Hey, you’ve got spinach in your teeth.” Are we going to accuse that friend of being AI next?

At the end of the day, punctuation isn’t the enemy. It’s not some evil plot to make writing look robotic. It’s a tool. A little sprinkle of order in the chaos of language. And if you see someone using it well, maybe don’t jump to conclusions about their humanity. Instead, give them a high-five for knowing the difference between “your” and “you’re.” Trust me, that’s a skill worth celebrating.

So, yeah. I’m not going to stop using punctuation just to prove I’m human. If anything, I’ll punctuate even harder. I’ll throw in a dash where it doesn’t belong just to mess with you. Because at the end of the day, it’s not about whether something looks like it was written by AI. It’s about whether it feels human. And trust me, this chaotic, slightly unhinged rant? That’s all me. No robot could pull this off. Well, at least not yet.

Oh yea, that little thing on the bar next to my post before I publish it, it tells me my readability score. Normally I aim for 8 and above there, this time I intentionally aimed for lower. This is a 5. Alot of my writing comes in at double digits all because of…. omg punctuation! What are your thoughts on this debate if it can be called that…