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| -rw-r--r-- | voice/SKILL.md | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | voice/references/voice-profile.org | 21 |
2 files changed, 19 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/voice/SKILL.md b/voice/SKILL.md index aef1db2..1ed40a4 100644 --- a/voice/SKILL.md +++ b/voice/SKILL.md @@ -319,9 +319,9 @@ See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §36 for problem, basis, examples, and See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §37 for problem, basis, examples, and history. -### 38. Terse Cut — Rhetorical Padding [prose · personal] +### 38. Terse Cut — Omit Needless Words [prose · personal] -**Rule.** Strip soft rhetorical padding ("worth noting", "it's important to understand", "as you can see", "needless to say", "obviously", "of course", "in essence", "fundamentally") and state the thing directly. Academic writing retains these as transition markers, so the aggressive cut is prose and personal only. +**Rule.** Two cuts. First, strip soft rhetorical padding ("worth noting", "it's important to understand", "as you can see", "needless to say", "obviously", "of course", "in essence", "fundamentally"). Then run the general Orwell sweep the padding list only samples: read each sentence and cut or collapse every word and clause that can go without losing meaning — verbose verb phrases ("already merged via" → "landed on"), restated subjects, throat-clearing lead-ins, clauses whose content the reader already has. The forcing test is per sentence: try to delete half of it and keep only what changes meaning. This is a real walk step, not a wordlist match — a draft that clears the named padding can still run a third too long on ordinary verbosity. Academic writing retains the transition markers, so the aggressive cut is prose and personal only. See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §38 for problem, basis, examples, and history. diff --git a/voice/references/voice-profile.org b/voice/references/voice-profile.org index 51df8cb..1490fae 100644 --- a/voice/references/voice-profile.org +++ b/voice/references/voice-profile.org @@ -1224,16 +1224,16 @@ Sentence fragments inside prose paragraphs in any text Craig authors: an email, - Original SKILL.md entry: sentence-fragment rewrite for Craig's authored prose. - 2026-05-29: migrated to this file as the canonical home per the pairing rule. -** §38 Terse Cut — Rhetorical Padding +** §38 Terse Cut — Omit Needless Words *** Modes Prose and personal modes. General mode keeps the softer §22 because academic registers retain "worth noting" and "it's important to understand" as legitimate transition markers. *** Rule -Strip soft rhetorical padding ("worth noting", "it's important to understand", "as you can see", "needless to say", "obviously", "of course", "in essence", "fundamentally") and state the thing directly. +Two cuts. First strip the soft rhetorical padding ("worth noting", "it's important to understand", "as you can see", "needless to say", "obviously", "of course", "in essence", "fundamentally"). Then run the general omit-needless-words sweep the padding list only samples: read each sentence and cut or collapse every word and clause that can go without losing meaning, not only the named phrases. Forcing test, per sentence: try to delete half of it and keep only what changes meaning. *** Problem -Tier 1 omit-needless-words (§26) catches the most rigid offenders ("the fact that", "in order to"). Prose and personal modes are more aggressive. They also strip soft padding like "worth noting" and "it's important to understand". Academic writing often retains these as transition markers, so the aggressive cut is prose and personal only because it conflicts with that register. +Tier 1 omit-needless-words (§26) catches rigid offenders ("the fact that", "in order to"). The original §38 added a named padding list ("worth noting", "obviously"). But a draft can clear both and still run a third too long, because ordinary verbosity matches no named trigger: "that already merged via" for "landed on", "with it still in the PR, the same fix lands" for "keeping it re-lands the fix", restated subjects, throat-clearing lead-ins, clauses the reader already has. Those slip the categorical detectors silently — the walk comes back clean while the text is still bloated. So §38 is a real walk step, not a wordlist match: after the named padding, read each sentence and try to delete half of it. Academic registers keep the transition markers, so the aggressive cut stays prose and personal only. *** Basis Corpus-measured across registers (2026-05-29). Single-sentence-paragraph rate: git commits 41.1%, personal email 57.4%, work email 44.5%, PR descriptions 74.4%, PR review comments 50.0%. The terse-paragraph cadence is even more pronounced in conversational and PR-description prose than in commits. Craig writes terse across registers, with the highest density in deliberate PR descriptions where each paragraph carries one focused thought. Confirmed indirectly via paragraph structure across all five corpora. @@ -1248,12 +1248,25 @@ It's worth noting that the change doesn't break the existing flow. Needless to s The change doesn't break the existing flow. The test suite is green. We can ship. #+end_example +*** Before (generic verbosity, no named padding) +#+begin_example +This try/except is the same isolation change that already merged via #203. With it still in the PR, the same production fix lands under a second ticket, which is what the test: label means. +#+end_example + +*** After +#+begin_example +This try/except already landed on development via #203. Keeping it re-lands a merged fix under a second ticket, like the test: label says. +#+end_example + +This second pair carries no padding phrase from the named list. Every cut is ordinary verbosity: "is the same isolation change that already merged via" collapses to "already landed on", "With it still in the PR, the same production fix lands" to "Keeping it re-lands a merged fix", "which is what ... means" to "like ... says". A wordlist match finds nothing here; the per-sentence "delete half of it" test finds all of it. + *** Detection -Padding phrases that add length without meaning: "worth noting", "it's important to understand", "as you can see", "needless to say", "obviously", "of course", "in essence", "fundamentally". +Two passes. (1) Named padding phrases: "worth noting", "it's important to understand", "as you can see", "needless to say", "obviously", "of course", "in essence", "fundamentally". (2) Ordinary verbosity beyond the list: verbose verb phrases ("already merged via" → "landed on"), restated subjects, throat-clearing lead-ins, and any clause whose content the reader already has. The forcing test for pass 2 is per sentence: try to delete half of it and keep only what changes meaning. *** History - Original SKILL.md entry: rhetorical-padding cut for Craig's authored prose. - 2026-05-29: migrated to this file as the canonical home per the pairing rule. +- 2026-06-02: generalized from a named-padding-list detector to a real omit-needless-words walk step. A PR-review comment cleared the §22/§23/§26/§38-padding patterns yet still ran a third too long on ordinary verbosity; the wordlist matched none of it. Renamed "Rhetorical Padding" to "Omit Needless Words", added the per-sentence "delete half of it" forcing test and the generic-verbosity example pair above. Craig's call. ** §39 Public-Artifact Scope Check |