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I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

marcusolang.substack.com

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Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#321

Post by komali2 »

phantasmish wrote: post #240
echelon_musk wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an English speaking American? Because being a native English speaker and actually being English, or from a former English colony will differ. I'd characterise Americans as less pretentious and more straight talking. This kind flowery language is typical (or symptomatic depending on diagnosis) of how English people actually used to speak and write. The average English vocabulary has dwindled noticeably in my l…

> I'd characterise Americans as less pretentious and more straight talking. Various registers representing a huge proportion of US English we see and hear day-to-day are terrible. American “Business English” is notably bad, and is marked by this sort of fake-fancy language. The dialect our cops use is perhaps even worse, but at least most of us don’t have to read or hear it as much as the business variety.

> The dialect our cops use is perhaps even worse, but at least most of us don’t have to read or hear it as much as the business variety.

Ugh, and journalists often slip into cop dialect in their articles. It's disgustingly propagandic.

Notice that cops never kill or shoot someone, even in situations where they're blatantly in the wrong. It's always, "service weapon was discharged" or "subject was fired upon." Make sure to throw a couple "proceeded to's" in there for good measure.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#322

Post by komali2 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #270
derefr wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MASSIVE EM DASH Tangent: the thing I find most annoying about ChatGPT's use of em-dashes is that it never even uses them for the one thing they're best suited for. ChatGPT's em-dashes could almost always be replaced with a colon or a comma. But the true non-redundant-syntax use of em-dashes in English prose, is in the embedding into a sentence of self-interruptive 'joiner' sub-sentences that can themselves bear pun…

> These things are spoken entirely differently than — and on the page, they read entirely differently to — regular parenthetical-bearing sentences. > No, seriously, compare/contrast: "these things are spoken entirely differently than (and on the page, they read entirely differently to) regular parenthetical-bearing sentences." Those are spoken the same way, they read the same way, and they mean the same thing.

Not universally. I disagree, they read differently to me, and I'd say them differently.

Parentheses to me always feel like the speaker switching to camera #3 while holding a hand up to their mouth conspiratorially.

Em dashes are same-camera with maybe some kind of gesticulation such as pointing or hands up, palms down, then palms up when terminating the emdash clause.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#323

Post by gcanyon »

> You didn’t just ‘walk’; you ‘strode purposefully’, ‘trudged wearily’, or ‘ambled nonchalantly’.

‘Striding’ is ‘purposeful’; ‘trudging’ expresses ‘weariness’; ‘ambling’ implies ‘nonchalance’.

Good verb choice reduces adverb dependence.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#324

Post by alexose »

GMoromisato wrote: post #262
phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

"He walked up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He strode up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He sidled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He tromped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" Each of those sentences conveys as slightly different action. You can almost imagine the person's face has a different expression in each version. Yes, I hate it when amateurs just search/rep…

The Hawaiian language has a concept called Kaona, which is essentially embedding deeper meanings in contextual word choices. It can go way beyond the literal meaning of the words, and tie into bigger concepts of culture, lineage, and places. It's super cool hearing about it from native speakers.

We don't really do it intentionally in English, at least to the same degree. But there's still a lot of information coded in our word and grammar choices.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#325

Post by aleph_minus_one »

dgan wrote: post #241
phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

I consider myself fluent in English, I watch technical talks and casual youtubers on English daily, and this is the first time I encounter this word lol. The only "stride" I know relates to the gap betweeb heterogeneous elements in a contiguous array

> I consider myself fluent in English, I watch technical talks and casual youtubers on English daily, and this is the first time I encounter this word lol.

> The only "stride" I know relates to the gap betweeb heterogeneous elements in a contiguous array

I am also not a native English speaker, but I got to know the verb to "to stride" from The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn is originally introduced under the name "Strider":

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aragorn&oldid=132...

"Aragorn is a fictional character and a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Aragorn is a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider and later revealed to be the heir of Isildur, an ancient King of Arnor and Gondor."

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#326

Post by komali2 »

rcarmo wrote: post #123
komali2 wrote: post #80

> There were unspoken rules, commandments passed down from teacher to student, year after year. The first commandment? Thou shalt begin with a proverb or a powerful opening statement. “Haste makes waste,” we would write, before launching into a tale about rushing to the market and forgetting the money. The second? Thou shalt demonstrate a wide vocabulary. You didn’t just ‘walk’; you ‘strode purposefully’, ‘trudged we…

I'm bilingual (so not fully native by most criteria) and I read enough classic English literature to actually use "proceeded" regularly, as well as multiple other more established means of conveying my intended meaning :)

I meant it more in the modern usage where it's either thrown in liberally when using cop-speak, or by tumbler/redditor type writers when they're trying to be funny.

"He then proceeded to" in these situations can basically always just be "he (verb)".

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#327

Post by pedroma »

dgan wrote: post #241
phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

I consider myself fluent in English, I watch technical talks and casual youtubers on English daily, and this is the first time I encounter this word lol. The only "stride" I know relates to the gap betweeb heterogeneous elements in a contiguous array

People don't discuss how people walk in daily conversation, so it's a word primarily encountered in literature, and more common in specific types of literature (like romance novels to describe how a man paces about with swagger).

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#328

Post by [deleted] »

derefr wrote: post #235
phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

> Drilling the average student on trying to make their language superficially “smarter” is a comically bad idea, and is indeed the opposite of what almost all of them need. I mean, it seems like it could work if you get to follow it up with a "de-education" step. Phase 1: force them to widen their vocabulary by using as much of it as possible. Phase 2: teach them which words are actually appropriate to use.

[deleted]

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#329

Post by anomaly_ »

komali2 wrote: post #315
phantasmish wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He scrambled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He kick-flipped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" [edit] electric-slid! Pirouetted! Somersaulted!

Maneuvered, marched, slid over to, snuck up on/to, rolled on up to, ambled, thread his way through the crowd to, slithered, slunk. Pimp walked. Danced over to. Hopped over to. Sprinted! Jogged! Charged!

He rolled away on his heelys.

Re: I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me

#330

Post by strken »

GMoromisato wrote: post #262
phantasmish wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obsession with short sentences and generally pushing extreme simplicity of structure and word choice has been terrible for English prose. It’s not been terrible because most people aren’t aided by such guidance (most are) but because the same people who can’t be trusted to wield a quill without the bumper-lanes installed see a sentence longer than ten words, or a semicolon, or god forbid literate and appropriate nuan…

"He walked up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He strode up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He sidled up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" "He tromped up to Helen and asked, 'What are you doing?'" Each of those sentences conveys as slightly different action. You can almost imagine the person's face has a different expression in each version. Yes, I hate it when amateurs just search/rep…

I know you know everything I'm about to write, but I read a lot of dubious quality fiction. It needs to be made clear that if the butler "strides" up to Helen, then I, the reader, am expecting him to eject her from the party, tell her that her car is on fire, or something equally dramatic. The writer can subvert this expectation, but must at least acknowledge that it exists. The butler can stride up to Helen with a self-important sniff and welcome her to the house, but he can't just stride up for no reason: the striding must be explained and it must be relevant to the rest of the story.

Conveying meaning is the whole problem here. An unexpected word choice is a neon sign saying "This is important!" and it disappoints the reader if it is not.

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