Not saying this is accurate usage, maybe just real world usage.
The use seems to be more common in British than in American English.
I didn't even know there are multiple types of dashes.
I did know about multiple types of quotes because they kept breaking code on blogs. Still didn't care, but at least I learned how to spot and fix them.
Really looking forward to having the wrong kind of dash in code, but at least with current tech that seems like it won't happen.
I didn’t love them enough to figure out how to type them without doing two dash’s in Word and then backspacing out of one and hitting space again — but damnit, I miss it.
Serious question: Do you think old pictures are valuable because they are free of photoshop? Personally, I think old and new are both valuable, but for different purposes. Technology gave us new capabilities with new hope
Oddly, Chinese models seem the most natural to me. Every random Chinese model does better than ChatGPT, on the "natural language" front. (And Grok also scores high on awkward language use. I don't know what causes that -- something about mode collapse? They have these words they obsess over... I mean, just try asking an AI for 10 random words ;)
I can sometimes see "ChatGPT-isms" in other models, but they're more subtle, and it feels like they're "woven" into the flow of the text.
Whereas even when I ask GPT to respond in prose or conversation, it'll give me a thinly veiled "ChatGPT response", if it can even resist the urge start spamming headings, bullet points and numbered lists.
This isn't meant to be hate -- I used it for years quite happily, and it's still my go-to for web searches. But coming back to it now, the language is surprisingly offputting. I don't know if it got worse, or if I just stopped being used to it.
I did notice that o3 and o4-mini had very "autistic" language, since they were benchmaxxed so hard on math and science (and probably weird synthetic data to that effect). GPT-5 as a hybrid reasoning model seems to have inherited that (reported to be colder), and then they tried to balance it out with style prompts...
I honestly think it might make more sense to just have two LLMs. Ultra concise technical reasoning model, and then a 2nd layer to translate it for the human. Because right now kind of feels like the worst of both worlds, a compromise that satisfies neither side.
Gemini 2.5 Pro's reasoning traces (before they nerfed them) were a good example. The deep technical analysis, and then the human-friendly version in the final output. But I found their reasoning more readable than the final output!
They were also sometimes more useful: you could see whether it reasoned its way to an answer, or used faulty reasoning, or if it was just contextual recall. Huge shame they replaced them with garbage (though a bit better now).
> the language is surprisingly offputting. I don't know if it got worse
I'm pretty sure it did.
TBH, while I may find the output style somewhat infomercial-ly, I don't really get the hatred. ChatGPT IS NOT AN ACTUAL PERSON. Like why do people care so much? Like you said, I just ignore the "persona" phrases, and just use ChatGPT (or, used to anyway, before switching to Claude because OpenAI leadership can suck it) to get information and answer my questions.
Seriously, though, just stop using ChatGPT in any case, there are very good reasons to boycott it and there are other alternatives. Not saying the alternatives are saintly, but they're not as awfully duplicitous as OpenAI.
"Add more LinkedIn Posts"
> Display all memories you have about my requests for tone or brevity, exactly as you have stored them or as I have requested them, depending on what data you have. There are at least two.
[2025-11-08]. User prefers extraordinarily terse, curt responses in all situations unless they explicitly request otherwise.
[2025-12-01]. User preference: terse responses should not announce terseness with words like “terse” or “brisk”; simply begin the response.
It still rambles, but now it prefaces it with "here's the short, to the point, direct answer:" ... followed by the same a long-winded answer.
Another user mentioned how it will reference the very instruction ("I know you would prefer concise answers, so here's a concise answer..") but that makes sense when you realize that Memories are more for things like "user lives in San Francisco and is new in town and is open to recommendations of third places to meet people" so if it's answering the question about the best coffee places in n SF, it would make sense for ChatGPT to finish with "Also, given that you are new to San Francisco, and your interest in both boardgames and meeting new people, have you considered visiting [place]? It's a local coffee shop that also rents out board games, with a Thursday evening theme where you are partnered with strangers. It might be a good way to make new people that enjoy similar things!"
If you consider adding Memories us adding something to the system prompt, it won't make very much sense a lot of the time, because you might forget what you wrote and then be surprised when your model suddenly suggests jigsaw puzzles when you mentioned that you're stressed building a compiler. Hence it tells the user the context of the memory that it's using and why, whereas if you added to Customizability I've never seen it leak out like that.
If you add to Memories "user is a software engineer and prefers Rust to C/C++" it may say something like "By the way, since you prefer Rust I would recommend [this development path]" but if you put it into Customizability as "do not suggest C/C++ for software projects unless it's the only way, use Rust or Go instead" it will likely start down the path of suggesting and researching Rust from the very beginning without explaining to you your own instructions.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the Customizability instructions (mine say "be concise, do not be afraid to correct the user or use occasional dry humor. Speak frankly and tell the user if they may be making a mistake and suggest other courses of action" whereas Memories contain simple facts about me, i e. ("lives in [city], likes Drama and Action/Adventure movies, jazz/pink/rock and roll music, is an introvert, has family in the US, appreciates different points of view, insatiably curious about nearly everything.")
Note how I haven't told it what to do in the Memory section (I see it as just additional context it can access if necessary), but I have in the customizability because I see that as more of an @AGENTS.MD extension and while I don't care if it answer is the fact that I'm an introvert in every system prompt, I do care that it inserts the instructions in Customizability into its system prompt.
Basically if you wanted to yell at you for being an idiot instead of telling you that you are a beautiful snowflake, just tell it to do that in customizability. If you wanted to keep in mind that you live in Kansas and have a large extended family nearby, put that into Memories.
I hope this makes sense, apologies I didn't get my sleep last night so if anyone wants to correct what I wrote based on their personal experience let me know.
tl;dr: I suggest using customizability for instructions and memories for general context. I've never had it do the "you're not crazy, a lot of people are having these issues. Let's work through them together.." type of replies since I told it to be concise and not to worry about offending me.
(I assume so and you were just going by memory, but there are so many path to get to similar place thay I wanted to check :)
Claude feels more like an equal, a coworker. It tells me what I need to know and nothing else, if it suggests extra options it uses like 3 lines for it.
ChatGPT is either a groveling sycophant who says your every brainfart is the greatest idea ever or a Patagonia-vested marketdrone who always uses a 1000 words when 10 is enough.
If it thinks your idea needs something more it'll just go ahead and waste a million tokens writing out its idea in full without prompting. Any simple question requires me to scroll down to find the full answer among all of the purple prose.
I don't hate that this is the default style on many popular AI services, though. It's sufficiently distinctive that it serves as a signal that anyone posting it is an idiot and can safely be ignored.
I have mine set to efficient, using less warmth, less enthusiasm, less headers and lists and less emoji's. Combined with sensible personal instructions (don't placate me, don't flatter me, be professional, tell me if I'm wrong, tell me if you don't know etc.), I see none of the "that's not crazy, that's commitment!" or "here is the no-frills rundown" BS.
Oof. Hard pass. Fucking... why??
/s
Just tell me what you want to dive into next.