The Recursive Grift 2026-07-21 2026-W30-2 2 min read

Prompting Perplexity produced this phrase table. It wouldn’t fit on your phone, so it’s here on the website instead — cut from Chapter 3 for formatting reasons, not quality:

Model/stylePhrases to watch forEditing tendencyTrim this
ChatGPT-styledelve, nuanced, moreover, furthermore, in conclusion, it’s important to noteOften sounds polished, structured, and a bit over-explained.Cut generic transitions, remove summary filler, and replace abstract claims with specific examples.
Claude-stylethoughtful, nuanced, consider, importantly, balanced, it dependsOften feels careful, reflective, and heavily qualified.Reduce hedging, shorten qualification chains, and state the main point earlier.
Gemini-stylerevolutionize, innovative, unlock, powerful, help you discover, seamlesslyOften reads as upbeat and product-marketing heavy.Remove hype adjectives, cut marketing language, and keep the wording more concrete.
Copilot-stylestreamline, optimize, facilitate, drive efficiency, best practices, actionable insightsOften sounds like corporate documentation or internal comms.Replace business jargon with plain verbs and delete jargon that does not add meaning.
Llama-stylecomprehensive, robust, versatile, enhance, practical, in this guideOften mirrors generic web writing and can feel template-like.Tighten vague claims, vary sentence length, and add a more distinct point of view.
Grok-stylereal-time, live search, truth-seeking, honest answers, direct, unfiltered, witOften sounds punchier, more opinionated, and more self-aware.Remove the “I know this right now” posture, soften performative edge, and keep the wit only if it helps the point.
Perplexity-styleconcise, answer engine, trusted, real-time, sources, accurate, structured, practicalOften sounds efficient, source-forward, and structured.Cut boilerplate, avoid sounding like a product tagline, and keep the answer compact.

You've been exploring the long tail. To explore the head; the book's page is here.

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