From cd9e471386021ebc161150add5748100ea40ec16 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tomasz Szypula Date: Fri, 22 May 2026 08:27:26 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Narrow Section 26 hyphen rule to drop only predicate-position cases The original rule said to strip hyphens from compound modifiers uniformly. That produces ungrammatical English in attributive position: "a high quality report" is wrong; "a high-quality report" is correct. The actual AI tell is uniform hyphenation INCLUDING in predicate position ("the report is high-quality"). Humans typically hyphenate attributive use only and drop the hyphen when the compound follows the noun. Reworded the Problem statement to spell out the attributive-vs- predicate distinction. Reworked the Before/After so the same compound modifiers appear in both positions, demonstrating that only the predicate-position hyphens get dropped. --- SKILL.md | 6 +++--- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/SKILL.md b/SKILL.md index 46639f02..a04dfcc3 100644 --- a/SKILL.md +++ b/SKILL.md @@ -408,13 +408,13 @@ Avoiding AI patterns is only half the job. Sterile, voiceless writing is just as **Words to watch:** third-party, cross-functional, client-facing, data-driven, decision-making, well-known, high-quality, real-time, long-term, end-to-end -**Problem:** AI hyphenates common word pairs with perfect consistency. Humans rarely hyphenate these uniformly, and when they do, it's inconsistent. Less common or technical compound modifiers are fine to hyphenate. +**Problem:** AI hyphenates these uniformly, including in predicate position (`the report is high-quality`). Humans hyphenate inconsistently — typically only when the compound is attributive (`a high-quality report`) and often dropping the hyphen otherwise (`the report is high quality`). Keep attributive-position hyphens; drop them when the compound follows the noun. **Before:** -> The cross-functional team delivered a high-quality, data-driven report on our client-facing tools. Their decision-making process was well-known for being thorough and detail-oriented. +> The cross-functional team delivered a high-quality, data-driven report. The team is cross-functional, the report is high-quality, and the methodology is data-driven. **After:** -> The cross functional team delivered a high quality, data driven report on our client facing tools. Their decision making process was known for being thorough and detail oriented. +> The cross-functional team delivered a high-quality, data-driven report. The team is cross functional, the report is high quality, and the methodology is data driven. ### 27. Persuasive Authority Tropes