Repo: [redacted]. [redacted] Task: DRMac…

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2026-08-24

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Repo: redacted. redacted sentence: unpublished prose

Task: DRMacIver flagged "arithmetic" as an overused verbal tic — used often "and often not very naturally". There are ~16 occurrences across chapters 001-010. Sweep them: the metaphorical construction "the X arithmetic" is retired; for each occurrence, either (a) cut/rephrase into plain concrete language in the chapter's own voice (usually best — say the actual thing: the count, the sums, what's being weighed), or (b) keep it ONLY if it is literally about counting/calculation AND is the most natural word there — keep at most 2-3 across all ten chapters. redacted sentence While in each file, also vary any clustered "half past" clock references where a neighbouring phrasing exists naturally (twenty past, near one, o'clock) — only where it reads naturally; the System-clock precision canon stands.

Do NOT touch chapters 011+ (owned by a running workflow), samples/, plans/, unpublished or notes/.

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Return: per chapter, each occurrence and what you did with it (kept/cut/rephrased, with the new text).

🔧 Bash: grep -n -A15 "House-word" redacted/notes/llm-tells.md; ls redacted/chapters/; grep -r… (Find arithmetic occurrences and rule text)

✅ 68 lines, 17055 chars

I'll read the context around each occurrence in chapters 001-010, plus the voice references.

🔧 Bash: cd redacted redacted sentence: unpublished prose (Show context around each arithmetic occurrence)

✅ 96 lines, 13516 chars

I have all the context I need from grep. Now I'll do minimal reads of each file to enable edits.

16 tool calls

🔧 Read chapters/001-the-wrong-man.md

✅ 1 lines, 268 chars

🔧 Read redacted sentence: unpublished prose

✅ 11 lines, 1721 chars

🔧 Read chapters/005-the-sample.md

✅ 1 lines, 131 chars

🔧 Read chapters/006-the-handover.md

✅ 1 lines, 652 chars

🔧 Read chapters/007-the-east-road.md

✅ 1 lines, 68 chars

🔧 Read chapters/008-road-lessons.md

✅ 1 lines, 229 chars

🔧 Read chapters/009-fenholt.md

✅ 1 lines, 212 chars

🔧 Read chapters/010-the-quiet-field.md

✅ 1 lines, 379 chars

Now applying all edits.

32 tool calls

🔧 Edit chapters/001-the-wrong-man.md

✅ 1 lines, 170 chars

🔧 Edit redacted sentence: unpublished prose

✅ 1 lines, 172 chars

🔧 Edit redacted sentence: unpublished prose

✅ 1 lines, 172 chars

🔧 Edit redacted sentence: unpublished prose

✅ 1 lines, 172 chars

🔧 Edit redacted sentence: unpublished prose

✅ 1 lines, 172 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/005-the-sample.md

✅ 1 lines, 167 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/006-the-handover.md

✅ 1 lines, 169 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/007-the-east-road.md

✅ 1 lines, 170 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/007-the-east-road.md

✅ 1 lines, 170 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/008-road-lessons.md

✅ 1 lines, 169 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/008-road-lessons.md

✅ 1 lines, 169 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/009-fenholt.md

✅ 1 lines, 164 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/009-fenholt.md

✅ 1 lines, 164 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/009-fenholt.md

✅ 1 lines, 164 chars

🔧 Edit chapters/010-the-quiet-field.md

✅ 1 lines, 172 chars

🔧 Bash: redacted sentence: unpublished prose (Verify remaining occurrences and commit)

✅ 12 lines, 433 chars

Done. redacted sentence 16 occurrences in chapters 001-010 reduced to 3 kept (all literal counting in dialogue, one per chapter). Per-chapter record:

001-the-wrong-man.md
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Both "half past twelve" references left alone: they're the deliberate rain-delivery callback, not a cluster.

002-the-ten-o-clock.md
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"who did the arithmetic out loud" — rephrased: "who put it together out loud"
"it's just weather and arithmetic" — KEPT (famine speech; literally about the number, feeds "what the number is made of")
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005-the-sample.md
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose

006-the-handover.md

"It's good arithmetic" (pear trees, years to fruit vs. lifespans) — KEPT (literal number-weighing in dialogue)
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007-the-east-road.md
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose

008-road-lessons.md
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
redacted sentence: unpublished prose

009-fenholt.md
redacted sentence: unpublished prose
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Clock variance: "waking Peri at half past four" → "at twenty past four" (matches the chapter's existing twenty-past phrasings; the canon 12:30 echo at line 41 and "half past eight" left).

010-the-quiet-field.md
redacted sentence: unpublished prose

No new abstraction was introduced anywhere — replacements are plain words (sums, count, plan, what he'd said) with no repeated new coinage. Chapters 011+ untouched.