A bum rap from the Slop Cop

The Slop Cop is an online computer program that claims to identify prose that either is or resembles text generated by a large language model. For funsies, I thought I'd show it yesterday's blog post and see what it had to say. In this short 600-word post, it identified nine (9) spots where it felt my writing resembles output from an LLM. Ridiculous! I don't fuck with slop generators, in fact I go out of my way to avoid them as much as possible, so may it please the court, I'd like to present my rebuttal. I think you'll find that under the slightest scrutiny, the prosecution's testimony dissolves faster than a snowman in Aruba. The jury will have no choice but to acquit my client of all charges.

1: Triple construction

So I've been drinking more apple juice, and being able to get it in frozen concentrate form is perfect. It doesn't take up much space in my freezer, I can stock up, and it's cheaper than any of the bottled apple juice options at the store.

Break the pattern. Use two items or four. Or convert one item into its own sentence to give it more weight.

It's true that LLMs love the three-item construction, but you know what they hate? Asymmetry. I think it's prudent to look not only at the number of items, but the way each item is constructed. A slop bot would never allow "I can stock up" to stick out between two much longer constructions. It's a complete sentence, but an LLM would feel compelled, even obligated to pad it out until it's the same length as the surrounding statements. It would extend it into something much more cumbersome like "I can stockpile enough juice to last many weeks". Therefore, I don't think the three-item construction on its own constitutes compelling evidence.

2 & 3: Em dash overuse

What I can afford is going to be made from concentrate anyway, so home-mixed shouldn't taste any different—or at least, that's what I thought.
[…]
The idea still seemed strange to me: the directions didn't say to set the microwave to defrost mode, or to lower the power—just nuke that sucker full-blast, it says.

Ask what relationship this dash is expressing. A pause → comma. A list → colon. A parenthetical → parentheses. A new sentence → period. Choose the right tool.

The em dash has become something of an anti-LLM meme, which is a shame, because it really is the right tool for some situations. I think most people don't have a good grasp on what an appropriate use of the em dash looks like. The Slop Cop seems to flag all of them, which is pure grammatical profiling. Now I'm no White, and I'm definitely no Strunk. I can't give you a precise rubric defining what punctuation is appropriate where, but here's my rule of thumb: you use an em dash when you need a pause that's longer than a comma but shorter than a full stop, and a semicolon wouldn't feel right. A semicolon is good when you have two connected statements where each comprises a complete thought; this sentence is an example of exactly that. Em dashes are useful when you have two connected statements, but one of them is a sentence fragment—like this.

Have I ever used an em dash where a semicolon would scan better? Sure, I'm only human, but I think I did a good job here. "Or at least, that's what I thought" and "just nuke that sucker full-blast, it says": these are both fragments that wouldn't hold up as their own sentences, but flow coherently from the sentences that precede them. Thus, both uses are appropriate, and I certainly don't think two appearances in 600 words constitutes "overuse".

4: Negation pivot

It wasn't undrinkable, but something wasn't right.

Rewrite as a direct positive claim. "We don't constrain through prohibition, but through amplification" → "We constrain through amplification." Lead with what is true, not what isn't.

This isn't a negation! "But" is a conjunction with a ton of possible uses. Here, I'm using it as a de-intensifier. "He's not a grandmaster, but he's still pretty good." Do you see how what comes after the "but" isn't the opposite of what came before it? "I didn't get as much sleep as I wanted, but I got enough to function." We all know and hate the LLM construction: "x isn't y, but z." In this example I'm saying "x isn't the most extreme case of y, but it's still y."

5—8: Colon elaboration

It's a simple but brilliant idea:
The idea still seemed strange to me:
I couldn't put my finger on what:
My only caveat:

Either merge into one flowing sentence, or make two separate sentences. The colon-elaboration structure becomes predictable when used repeatedly.

Is "using repeatedly" what I'm doing here? Is my usage predictable? The post is 8 paragraphs long. The colons appear in paragraphs 1, 3, 4 and 7. If it happened multiple times in a row, or if they appeared in the first sentence of each paragraph, the cop would have a point; but this is a totally cromulent distribution.

9: Triple construction II

But if you'd be buying plastic jugs of apple juice anyway, give frozen a try. It's less plastic, it'll save you money, it's less effort to get home, it's easy to stock up, and if you ignore the cooking directions, it tastes great.

Break the pattern. Use two items or four. Or convert one item into its own sentence to give it more weight.

This is hilarious. Please count the number of items in this construction. Did you get five? That's what I got too. It just highlighted three things—incorrectly flagging a conditional modifier as part of the list—¹and ignored the rest. Enbies and gentlethem of the jury, even if you find none of my other arguments compelling, ask yourselves this: can you trust the testimony of someone who will show you five things, look you in the eye, and tell you it's three? I rest my case 🦝