The feed of a Hackaday writer brings many surprises, some rubbish, and the occasional diamond which of course we bring to you. Sometimes a page catches the eye that’s not a Hackaday piece per se, but makes for interesting reading. Today there was an example which provides a catalyst for a story if not being one itself.

It’s an AI skill intended to make a slop-writing operation look less sloppy, and since it contains a list of slop behaviours, of course it’s irresistible to turn it on yourself. To delve into the archives, if you will. So here goes, how slop-like is your scribe?

It kicks off with the old favourite, “Delve“. Oh dear, that one’s in the List Hackaday corpus quite a bit. Earliest appearance: 2016. Then landscape terms, in which it’s easy to recognise “Sphere” again. Oops. 2016 again. How about “Testament“? Well, that one’s a 2017 word. “Pivotal“? Four years of the Raspberry Pi, back in 2016. How about “Showcase“? Yup, it’s there, in 2019. Meanwhile “Foster“, goes back to 2017.

Next up are “Leverage” and “Utilise“. Safe ground here. Editors have what are referred to a “Pet Peeves”, language tics that annoy them on sight, and those two regrettable pieces of business-speak never evade this red pencil. The word you are looking for is “Use”.

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