2026-08-24
User:
Repo: redacted. redacted sentence: unpublished prose
Task: DRMacIver flagged "honest" as an overused Claude verbal tic. ~24 occurrences in chapters 001-010; the reflex is the narrator adjective "honest [noun]" (honest account, honest list, honest accounting, honest inquiry, honest disagreement, honest diagram, "an entirely honest one", "honest the same way", "flat and honest", "one honest thing after another"). Sweep every occurrence of honest/honestly/honesty:
- Narrator "honest [noun]": rephrase to say what the thing actually IS in plain concrete words (accurate, plain, unflattering, drawn to scale, "two links apart", "the short version of what he actually did all day") or cut the adjective where the noun stands alone. redacted sentence
- Dialogue "honestly": keep ONLY where a real speaker would say it and it carries meaning (Peri's "Which is a wonderful cover, honestly" is characterful — keep); cut filler ones. "Marked honestly. The marking honestly is the..." in 008 — rework once so the repetition goes.
- Literal sense ("he could not honestly say"): at most one kept across all ten chapters.
Target: ≤4 remaining across chapters 001-010, all earning their place. Edits minimal and invisible: only the affected sentence, no voice drift, no new decoration. Do NOT touch chapters 011+ (owned by a running workflow), samples/, notes/, plans/. unpublished
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Return: per chapter, each occurrence and what you did (kept/cut/rephrased with new text), and the final count.
I'll read the reference material and find all occurrences first.
🔧 Bash: grep -n -A40 "House-word convergence" notes/llm-tells.md > redacted: private cat /priva… (Read house-word section and list occurrences)
✅ 42 lines, 2828 chars
The grep pattern failed on the glob (zsh). Let me list occurrences with the right paths, and read the reference material.
🔧 Bash: ls chapters/ && grep -n -i "honest" chapters/001-*.md chapters/002-*.md chapters/003-*.md… (List chapters and grep honest in 001-010)
✅ 44 lines, 12260 chars
Now the required reading: voice exemplars, seed chapter, and chapters 001–010 in full.
🔧 Bash: redacted sentence: unpublished prose (Read voice exemplars and seed chapter)
✅ 348 lines, 16999 chars
Now the ten chapters in full.
🔧 Bash: redacted sentence: unpublished prose (Read chapters 001-005)
✅ 20 lines, 2110 chars
🔧 Bash: cat chapters/006-the-handover.md chapters/007-the-east-road.md chapters/008-road-lessons.… (Read chapters 006-010)
✅ 20 lines, 2088 chars
The output was persisted. I'll read the two saved files.
🔧 Read redacted: private
✅ 613 lines, 64271 chars
🔧 Read redacted: private
✅ 645 lines, 68568 chars
🔧 Read redacted: private
✅ 131 lines, 18583 chars
🔧 Read redacted: private
✅ 247 lines, 26239 chars
I've read everything. Now applying the edits with a script that checks each replacement matches exactly once.
🔧 Bash: cat > redacted: private <<'EOF' import pathlib, sys root = pathlib.Path("redacted… (Apply honest-sweep edits and verify remaining occurrences)
✅ 14 lines, 1762 chars
Three remain, all earning their place. Committing.
🔧 Bash: redacted sentence: unpublished prose (Commit the honest-tic sweep)
✅ 1 lines, 41 chars — redacted sentence
redacted sentence Only chapters 001–010 touched; 20 lines changed across 9 files (003 had no occurrences). Chapters 011+, samples/, notes/, plans/ unpublished untouched.
001-the-wrong-man.md (4 occurrences)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
002-the-ten-o-clock.md (4)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
004-three-letters.md (1)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
005-the-sample.md (1)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
006-the-handover.md (1)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
007-the-east-road.md (2, one sentence pair)
008-road-lessons.md (4)
009-fenholt.md (4)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
010-the-quiet-field.md (4)
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
3 remaining across chapters 001–010 (target ≤4): Peri's "honestly" (001), the literal "could not honestly say" (008), and Ferrin's line (009). No synonym-tics introduced ("accurate" appears twice, deliberately as a pair; no candid/frank/truthful/straight).