active · lexical · first recorded 2026-07-02 · registers: hn
Emphatic “actual/actually” to signal getting-to-the-substance: “the actual problem”, “what's actually happening”. Six times the human rate.
model specificity: heaviest in Claude models
◑ appears in good human writing too (collateral score 0.17 — the closer to 1, the more it also fires on acclaimed pre-AI prose)
…the actual failure mode is subtler…
occurrences per 10k words, measured 2026-09-28 (run #15, 3 current + 3 vintage models)
| current AI | vintage AI (2024/25) | humans (matched) | canon (great pre-AI prose) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pooled | 3.96 | 1.10 | 0.37 | 0.68 |
| hn | 7.26 | — | 0.26 | |
| cooking | 2.18 | — | 0.56 | |
| parenting | 1.92 | — | 0.40 | |
| 1.17 | — | — |
| run | date | AI /10k | vs humans |
|---|---|---|---|
| #2 | 2026-07-02 | 3.83 | ×4.3 vs humans |
| #3 | 2026-07-02 | 2.77 | ×5.8 vs humans |
| #4 | 2026-07-06 | 3.13 | ×3.3 vs humans |
| #5 | 2026-07-13 | 2.95 | ×3.4 vs humans |
| #6 | 2026-07-20 | 3.17 | ×3.6 vs humans |
| #7 | 2026-07-27 | 3.34 | ×14 vs humans |
| #8 | 2026-08-03 | 3.17 | ×6.4 vs humans |
| #9 | 2026-08-10 | 3.54 | ×9.3 vs humans |
| #10 | 2026-08-17 | 4.65 | ×8.2 vs humans |
| #11 | 2026-08-31 | 3.32 | ×4.5 vs humans |
| #12 | 2026-09-07 | 3.40 | ×4.7 vs humans |
| #13 | 2026-09-14 | 3.10 | ×3.9 vs humans |
| #14 | 2026-09-21 | 3.68 | ×4.5 vs humans |
| #15 | 2026-09-28 | 3.96 | ×11 vs humans |
literal: the actual