# Figurative verb family 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: figurative-verb-family - Category: Lexical (lexical) - Subcategory: figurative-verbs - Also known as: carries weight, casts a shadow, strikes a chord, sits at the heart of, lends itself to - Status: Active. Currently signals low-effort writing. - Severity: low - Evidence grade: community-observed (named by practitioners, no formal measurement exists) - Languages: en - Added: 2026-08-15 - Updated: 2026-08-17 - Page: https://feedsquad.com/ai-tells/figurative-verb-family ## Description A small set of figurative verbs recycled as the default way to say that something matters. Carries real weight, casts a long shadow, strikes a chord, sits at the heart of and lends itself to are live metaphors in the hands of a feature writer and dead ones everywhere else. The evidence is two independent linters and nothing measured, which is what the community-observed grade records. ## Why it reads as machine-written The set is small and the substitution is frictionless. Any of these verbs fits any subject, so the choice between them carries no information about the subject. ## Detection Type: deterministic (a regular expression, run as written) Scope: sentence ECMAScript regular expression. The build validator compiles it and tests it against this entry's own specimens. ```regex \bcarries\s+(?:real|significant|extra|more)\s+weight\b|\bcasts?\s+a\s+long\s+shadow\b|\bstrikes?\s+a\s+chord\b|\bsits\s+at\s+the\s+heart\s+of\b|\blends\s+itself\s+(?:well\s+)?to\b ``` Flags: gi ## Examples Constructed specimens. Written for this index. Never quoted from anyone's posts. ### Specimen 1 Before, exhibiting the tell: > The pricing change carries real weight, and the reasoning behind it sits at the heart of how we think about value. A price is a statement about who a product is for, and statements like that are hard to take back. Getting one wrong casts a long shadow over everything that follows it. We would rather be clear now than clever later. After, repaired: > We raised the price of an agent from 29 to 39 euros in June and kept the old price for everyone who had already paid. Two customers left. Both said the same thing, that they used one agent and were being priced as though they used four. Note: Figures in this repair are invented for the specimen. The repair states the change, the exception, and the cost of it. ## False positives Who legitimately writes this way. Sports writing, feature journalism and music and theatre criticism use these verbs as working metaphors, and a critic writing that a performance struck a chord is describing an audience reaction they watched happen. Casts a long shadow is standard in history and biography for an influence that outlasts a person. Lends itself to is ordinary technical English for a material or method that suits a purpose. The pattern requires the fixed collocations, so a crane that carries weight up to nine tonnes and a guitarist playing a chord both escape it. A reviewer should try the substitution test: if any other verb in the family would fit the sentence equally well, the verb is carrying no meaning, and if only one fits, it is. ## Model attribution Undocumented. The family comes from two rule sets built by practitioners, and no measurement exists to attribute it to anything. ## Sources 1. vale-ai-tells, 111 machine-checkable rules https://github.com/tbhb/vale-ai-tells (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) 2. slop-lint, social-reply-register molds https://github.com/eric-sabe/slop-lint (tier: community; accessed 2026-08-14) ## Status history Ids are permanent. A retired tell keeps its id and its page. - 2026-08-15, Active: Active, on thin evidence. Two independent rule sets carry the family and no published study measures it, so the entry ships at low severity with the grade stated. It is listed because the substitution test is easy to run and useful, not because anyone has counted it. ## 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.