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Detector tell · 7 patterns · weight 4

The highest-weight family in the table, and the narrowest

Seven rows at weight 4 — the top weight in the engine — each anchored to the start of a line and each requiring the word to be followed immediately by punctuation.

Our detector calls this category “GPT-4 sycophant opener”. The patterns below are read out of functions/api/tools/detect.js when this page is built. A match is a fact about a phrase, not about who wrote the text.

Where this phrase showed up

Did not appear in the licensed samples we checked — no human sample and no AI sample. The rule still matches text that contains its own pattern. The constructed example below is that check.

We are not going to invent an example to fill the gap. What we can show instead is a sentence we wrote ourselves, purely to check that the rule is live.

A constructed example — written by us, not evidence

This sentence was written for this check. It is not from the licensed samples, nobody wrote it as real prose, and it says nothing about how anyone writes. Its only job is to prove the rule still fires, and the generator fails the build if it stops.

“Certainly! Here are the three figures you asked for.”

  • /^certainly[!.,:]/gim → “Certainly!”

What it means when a person writes this way

People write "Of course!" constantly, in replies, in notes, in messages. The anchoring is what keeps this from being a disaster: the pattern only matches when the word opens a line and is followed by ! . , or :, which is the shape of an assistant beginning a turn rather than of a person mid-paragraph. It is still the shape of a friendly email reply, and if you paste one in, expect these to fire.

The patterns, as the engine holds them

7 of the 70 rows in our phrase table carry this label. They are printed here as they are written, because a paraphrase of a regular expression is a different regular expression.

/^certainly[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “certainly!”, “certainly.”, “certainly,”, “certainly:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

/^of course[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “of course!”, “of course.”, “of course,”, “of course:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

/^absolutely[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “absolutely!”, “absolutely.”, “absolutely,”, “absolutely:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

/^great question[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “great question!”, “great question.”, “great question,”, “great question:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

/^sure thing[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “sure thing!”, “sure thing.”, “sure thing,”, “sure thing:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

/^no problem[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “no problem!”, “no problem.”, “no problem,”, “no problem:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

/^happy to help[!.,:]/gim weight 4

Matches “happy to help!”, “happy to help.”, “happy to help,”, “happy to help:” , in any capitalisation , and only at the start of a line.

What a hit does to your score

The phrase model is one of four in our ensemble, and its formula is patternScore = min(98, max(5, 10 + 7 x total weight)). One occurrence of the heaviest row in this category takes that model from 10 to 38 out of 100 — and the pattern model carries 40% of the ensemble when the em-dash signal fires and 55% when it does not.

Weight 4 with seven rows means a document opening several sections this way accumulates weight fast: at a weighted load of 8 the engine applies a floor of 62, at 12 a floor of 70, at 20 a floor of 82.

Check your own text

Our detector is free and shows you which sentences it flagged and why, including this category. Treat the score as a starting point, not proof.

Run the detector If you have been accused Why formal writing gets flagged

Other things the detector looks for