Sentences can be works of art. The best ones unspool in slight surprise, guiding readers to a destination both unpredictable and logical. Unfortunately, the writing algorithms of frontier models have distilled this delicate art down into a simple rule.

I call it the pregnant phrase. One editor said it is a “cleft sentence.” These sentences only become apparent, as the snitch said, “at the close.” They use obfuscation as a near-constant literary device. In Cleftland, every sentence begins with a modifier or a qualifier.

The most famous one is the negation: no, not and sometimes nor. This has been rightfully pummelled: it’s base-rate pablum dressed up as sophisticated technique.

I understand where the model is coming from. Used sparingly, an inversion can stun. 

Think of Life of Pi, which, late in the story, reveals itself to be a religious allegory. “And so it goes with God,” are six words that change the entire frame of the narrative; not so much a survival tale as an exercise in creative cosmology.

Then there’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, a favourite insertion into my Catholic priests’ Sunday homilies. An elaborate escape from a military execution in the Deep South is revealed to be nothing more than a mirage before the final tightening of the noose.

These represent the climaxes of their respective narratives; one truly has to work for the rug pull. Using them constantly, as Opus and Sonnet do, means the direction of your argument resembles a teenager learning to drive a stick shift. The argument lurches constantly forward and backwards, producing whiplash but no insight.

I’ve seen some writers respond to this critique with predictable literalism. “Don’t use the construction, it’s not x, it’s y.” Compliance, even with an ask as direct as this, is patchy. But if you remove that one structure, AI will sprinkle your writing with its cousins. The base rate of negatives in any piece of AI copy is at least five times too high.

There are other forms of clefts, ones that don’t rely on negation. Many are simple warm-ups: what we meant to say, what this tells us, how we should take the argument. Throat clearing at its very worst: delays on arriving at a place of substance. Stack enough of them together and you wind up with 40 words of preamble; a horseshoe oxbow of a sentence.

Length isn’t always the giveaway. Artificial writers have discovered the joy of the short, declarative sentence. I hate this. I remember the thrill of discovery in freshman composition — that a sentence could be a word or two long. Stunned. And yet AI ruins it through stacking and over-deployment, with a knowledge base that seems plucked from the most risible corners of LinkedIn.

Here is all of it at once:

What the past eighteen months have really shown us is this: the agentic era isn’t coming. It’s already here. And for financial services, that isn’t just a technology shift — it’s a fundamental reordering of how value gets created, captured, and ultimately, delivered. Now, it’s worth pausing on what we actually mean by “agentic.” Because while everyone is talking about automation, what the smartest firms understand — the ones quietly pulling ahead while their competitors chase the headlines — is that the real opportunity was never about replacing people at all. Speed matters. But trust matters more. Let that land. The institutions that win the next decade won’t be the ones with the best models. They’ll be the ones who remember that behind every algorithm sits a human being making a decision. And that, more than any roadmap or any deck, is what separates the leaders from the laggards.

It’s positively vile. Four negations baked inside a thick cutlet of asides, meanders and fake folk wisdom. Snicker all you want, yet too much professional, serious writing is pitched at this same exact register.

In the face of this widespread dross, we must return to the basics. Subjects go at the beginning. We shouldn’t go seven words without encountering a noun. Subject verb object. Earn every adjective. Negations, dashes and wind-ups are rare, finishing spices. Think fenugreek, not coriander.

And when in doubt, get to the point.

Jon Schubin runs content for Cognito