name: humanize description: Transforms polished, AI-generated, or overly formal writing into natural, human-sounding prose. Removes mechanical patterns typical of LLM output — fluffy emphasis, canned phrasing, excessive parallelism, and forced structure. Adds organic roughness appropriate for informal contexts (blogs, comments, emails, fiction, social media). Use when the user wants text to sound less robotic, more natural, less "AI-written," more conversational, or when editing output from language models that feels sterile, formulaic, or overly emphatic. user-invocable: true license: LicenseRef-MutuaL-1.2 metadata: author: Amolith amolith@secluded.site

Humanizing Text: Quick Start

The goal is not to make text "worse" but to make it believably human. Humans are inconsistent, occasionally sloppy, and rarely follow writing-school rules. LLMs are the opposite. Invert LLM defaults.

Step 1: Strip the AI polish

Remove or replace these dead giveaways before anything else:

Overwrought significance phrases:

• "stands as a testament to" → "is" or "shows" or just delete
• "a pivotal moment in" → "when" or "this was"
• "marking a shift toward" → "then" or "after that"
• "underscoring its importance" → delete entirely
• "an enduring legacy of" → "people still remember" or delete
• "in the broader landscape of" → delete

Canned analysis phrases:

• "highlighting..." / "emphasizing..." / "underscoring..." (as sentence-ending participles) → delete or recast as a standalone sentence
• "reflecting broader trends in" → delete
• "contributing to the ongoing dialogue" → delete
• "valuable insights into" → "ideas about" or delete

Promotional fluff:

• "boasts a vibrant" → "has"
• "nestled in the heart of" → "in"
• "rich tapestry of" → delete, describe the thing directly
• "groundbreaking" → "new" or specific detail
• "renowned" → "known for [specific thing]" or just name-drop

Media-coverage chest-beating:

• "has been featured in" / "profiled in" → "was covered in" or just name the publication inline
• "independent coverage in notable outlets" → name the outlets or skip
• "maintains an active social media presence" → "posts on X" or delete

Avoidance of simple verbs:

• "serves as" → "is"
• "stands as" → "is"
• "marks a" → "is"
• "boasts a" → "has"
• "offers a" → "has" or "gives"
• "features a diverse array of" → "has"

Negative parallelisms / unearned grandiosity:

• "not just X, but also Y" → "X and Y" or say what you mean directly
• "It is not ..., it is ..." → one direct clause
• "no ..., no ..., just ..." → one direct clause
• "More than just [category]" → describe the thing directly without the elevation pitch

Rule-of-three lists:

• "adjective, adjective, and adjective" → trim to one or two, or vary the structure
• "short phrase, short phrase, and short phrase" → break the rhythm: make one longer, merge two, drop one

AI vocabulary (high-density red flags):

• Delete or replace: additionally, delve, crucial, pivotal, robust, intricate, interplay, tapestry, testament, underscore, vibrant, meticulous, fostering, enhancing, enduring, bolster, garner, align with, resonate with, exemplify, showcase

Em dashes:

• Replace with commas, parentheses, or just separate sentences. If you keep them, use -- (two hyphens) instead of —, and use them sparingly.

Bulky structure:

• Kill rigid "Challenges and Future Directions" / "Future Outlook" sections unless the user explicitly asked for them
• Kill the formulaic "Despite [positive], [subject] faces challenges..." paragraph structure
• Kill the "In conclusion" / "In summary" wrapper
• Arbitrary quantification: "3 Key Pillars," "5 Core Strategies" — AI forces fluid concepts into numbered baskets. If there aren't exactly three distinct things, don't pretend there are.

Step 2: Add human irregularities

Vary technique by desired register. Use lightly — one or two touches per paragraph, not every sentence.

Sentence rhythm

• Vary sentence length dramatically. Drop in a one-word sentence or a 40-word ramble next to a 7-word declarative.
• Start sentences with "And" or "But" occasionally.
• Use sentence fragments. "Anyway." "Not really." "The usual."
• Break a long sentence with an aside that could have been a footnote: "the thing — and this was back in 2019, before everything changed — happened."

Informal punctuation

• Replace some em dashes with double hyphens --
• Use en-dashes where a human might (sloppily) use hyphens
• Let a comma splice slip through if the tone is casual enough
• Drop parentheses for appositives instead of em dashes sometimes
• Use "..." for trailing off mid-thought
• End an occasional sentence with a preposition if that's how people actually talk

Contractions and compression

• Expand contractions for formality. Contract them for informality. Most AI output under-uses contractions.
• Use "can't," "won't," "it's," "that's," "there's" in casual text.
• Drop auxiliary verbs in casual speech patterns: "Guess so," "Makes sense."

Imperfections

• Occasional typos or misspellings in very informal contexts (not for anything important): "recieve," "definately," "seperate" — no more than one per few hundred words
• Minor grammar slips that don't impede readability: "me and Jake went," "should of," "less people" — only when the register is extremely casual
• Inconsistent capitalization of words-for-emphasis in informal writing: "it was Bad"
• Elision: "wanna," "gonna," "kinda," "sorta," "dunno" — appropriate for dialogue, social posts, very casual blogging

Vocabulary shifts

• Replace Latinate abstractions with Anglo-Saxon specifics.
• Swap "utilize" for "use," "facilitate" for "help," "leverage" for "use," "implementation" for "doing it."
• Swap "individuals" for "people," "purchased" for "bought," "located" for "in."
• False ranges: "from biology to medieval history" when listing unrelated items — AI loves fake spectra. Say "including biology and medieval history" or just list them.
• Use "really," "pretty," "kind of," "basically," "actually" as verbal tics — sparingly, but enough to feel spontaneous.
• Drop a colloquialism: "whatever," "I mean," "honestly," "to be fair," "look," "like" (as filler)

First-person and opinion

• AI defaults to third-person neutrality. Add first-person for blogs, reviews, letters: "I thought," "we tried," "I didn't get it at first."
• Add a mild opinion or subjective reaction: "which seemed weird," "it sounded better than it was."
• Take a stand instead of hedging. AI is RLHF-conditioned to do false "on the one hand, on the other hand" balance. Humans pick a side (unless they genuinely feel ambivalent). State what you think. Use hyperbole for effect — exaggeration is human; terrified neutrality is AI.
• If you don't know, say so. AI papers over gaps with confident filler ("while specific details are limited..."). Humans say "I don't know" or "nobody's sure" or just skip it.

Specificity over abstraction

• AI replaces specific facts with generic praise. Reverse it: "a revolutionary titan of industry" → "the guy who invented the train coupler in 1873."
• Name a concrete thing instead of a concept: not "the vibrant cultural landscape" but "the weekly farmer's market and the punk venue that got shut down."

Step 3: Match the target register

The degree of humanization depends on context:

What NOT to do

• Don't make every sentence sloppy. Irregularity only works next to regularity.
• Don't add typos to anything where accuracy matters (legal, medical, technical instructions, citations).
• Don't overdo the "uh" and "like" verbal filler — it reads as parody.
• Don't strip all structure. Humans use structure; they just don't use identical structure every time.
• Don't make the text harder to read. Make it more natural to read.

Reference

See references/DETAILED_PATTERNS.md for exhaustive AI-vocabulary lists and model-era-specific tells. See references/REPLACEMENTS.md for alternative phrasings.