# Contraction avoidance Part of [The AI Tells Index](https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells). A tell signals low effort. It does not identify an author. Skilled writers produce every shape listed here, some of them daily, and automated detectors misread those writers for it at rates measured above 60 percent on non-native English prose. Nothing in this index proves that a machine wrote anything. Read an entry as one piece of evidence to weigh against the false-positive notes printed beside it. ## Facts - Id: contraction-avoidance - Category: Structural and syntactic (structural) - Subcategory: register - Also known as: no contractions anywhere, uniform formal register - Status: Contested. Credible people dispute that this signals anything at all. - Severity: low - Evidence grade: community-observed (named by practitioners, no formal measurement exists) - Languages: en - Added: 2026-08-15 - Updated: 2026-08-15 - Page: https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells/contraction-avoidance ## Description Not one contraction anywhere in a text that otherwise reads like speech. vale-ai-tells implements the check at document level. Wikipedia's signs-of-AI-writing page lists formal prose in itself among the indicators that do not work, and this entry cites that against itself, which is the reason it ships contested rather than active. ## Why it reads as machine-written Readers use contractions as a warmth marker, and that heuristic is the whole problem. The cues people rely on when judging how a text was made are predictable, which makes them easy to satisfy from either direction. What the rate measures is how a text was styled. A zero rate in a register that is otherwise conversational is worth a second read and nothing more. ## Detection Type: statistical (a measured metric against a threshold with a stated basis) Metric: contractions-per-1000-words Threshold basis: > No threshold ships. No published baseline exists for contraction rate by genre, and a rate of zero is normal in academic, legal and government registers by house rule rather than by habit. Report the rate beside the register. A zero rate in text that otherwise reads as speech is a FeedSquad reading cue that sends the draft back for a pass, and it is not a measurement anyone has validated. ## Examples Constructed specimens. Written for this index. Never quoted from anyone's posts. ### Specimen 1 Before, exhibiting the tell: > I am glad you asked about the pricing change. It is not something we do often, and we do not expect it to affect most customers. We will publish the details on Friday, and I will answer questions in the thread. After, repaired: > I'm glad you asked. The starter plan goes from 19 to 24 euros on 1 September, existing customers keep the old rate until renewal, and I'll be in the thread all Friday afternoon. Note: The contractions matter less than the two numbers and the date that arrived with them. Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. ## False positives Who legitimately writes this way. Academic, legal and government registers forbid contractions outright, and much business English written outside the United States does the same by house style. Second-language writers often avoid them because contractions were taught as informal and risky. Wikipedia's own page lists formal prose per se among the indicators that do not work, which is the strongest argument against this entry and the reason it carries a contested status. Read the register before reading the rate, and never read the rate on its own. ## Model attribution Vendor prompts suppress several register habits release by release, and none of the published instructions we read names contractions in either direction. The rate follows the prompt and the surface more than the model family. ## Platform notes - wikipedia: The signs-of-AI-writing page keeps a list of ineffective indicators that includes formal or fancy prose in itself, perfect grammar and bland tone. This entry sits on that list and is published contested because of it. ## Sources 1. vale-ai-tells, 111 machine-checkable rules https://github.com/tbhb/vale-ai-tells (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) 2. Wikipedia: Signs of AI writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) ## Status history Ids are permanent. A retired tell keeps its id and its page. - 2026-08-15, Contested: Ships contested. Wikipedia lists formal prose in itself among its ineffective indicators, and readers treat contractions as a warmth marker, which makes the rate a fact about styling rather than about effort. ## License CC BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Attribution: The AI Tells Index, feedsquad.com/ai-tells Reuse the data, including commercially. Keep the attribution line. --- Dataset version 1.0.0. Schema version 1. Part of [FeedSquad](https://feedsquad.com). Built by [Herman Foundry](https://hermanfoundry.com) from Levi, Finnish Lapland.