Redundant Antithesis

trigger

"caught in the wild — not theorised in advance"

what it is

Negative-positive antithesis where the negation adds zero information. The classical form ("not A, but B") is a deliberate rhetorical choice — Aristotle documented it. The LLM form is an RLHF-trained reflex: contrastive structures score higher in preference rankings, so the model generates them compulsively. "Caught in the wild" already implies "not theorised." The negation is dead weight that makes the sentence sound like a TED talk.

what it signals

Pre-LLM, this was a stylistic choice with real rhetorical force. Post-LLM, everyone uses AI as their copyeditor and this construction is everywhere. A discerning reader now pattern-matches it as AI-generated prose. The structure that once signalled decisiveness now signals "a model wrote this."

instead

Just say the positive. "Entries are added when caught in the wild." The reader does not need to be told what the alternative was. If the contrast genuinely adds meaning, keep it. If the reader already knows the negated term, cut it.

refs

• SD-209 (slopodar.yaml header comment)
• sites/oceanheart/layouts/_default/slopodar.html (page description)