Hey, Home Fry!
My friend DJ Waldow is reading an article in The Atlantic when he stops midway to text me a sentence he calls KILLER.
He's right. It is KILLER. (Shouty caps deserved.)
And because I'm the kind of person who likes sentences (we talked about just how much here), I kept thinking about this one.
On an internet increasingly written by AI, a truly human sentence hits different.
I thought about it long after DJ and I had stopped texting. After he'd presumably made his family dinner, walked the dog, and put his kids to bed on the West Coast.
Why is this sentence so good? I kept wondering. As I, too, made dinner and walked my dog in the sweltering, sticky evening air on the opposite coast.
What makes it land? Can it teach us something about great writing?
I think so. It's practically a writing masterclass—in just 42 words.
* * *
Here's the setup:
Writer Annie Lowrey is documenting her campaign to rid her life of plastics. Ingesting plastic can damage your organs, suppress your immune system, harden your veins, and predispose you to certain neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.
Woof, Annie says. She decides to do something about it. But how?
She writes:
I was doing my own research, by which I mean I was taking in data from disparate sources with differing degrees of credibility on a bewilderingly complicated issue and analyzing it with sophomore-year scientific literacy before making consumer decisions driven by single-issue neuroticism and a penchant for online shopping.
Read it again. Slower this time. It gets better the more you linger.
It's a little neurotic. It's funny. It's perfectly constructed.
And it operates on several levels at once:
1. RHETORICAL JUJITSU
It begins with doing my own research—a phrase that's become culturally charged, often used as a reason to reject expert consensus. You think Annie is doing the same, before (jujitsu
takedown!) she flips it on its back.
>> KILLER tip: Try the by
which I mean approach.
Say you're writing about a loaded or controversial topic, the by which I mean approach helps you redefine the problem
on your terms. You don't need to use the actual words; just the approach.
In this sentence, Annie is essentially saying: I am doing my own research, by which I mean [this is what I'm doing].
2. THE ASPIRATION / REALITY GAP
The humor lives in the gap between how we want to see our decision-making process (rational, informed, thorough) and how it actually works (anxious, biased, driven by convenience and impulse).
I feel attacked. Maybe you do, too.
>> KILLER
tip: Expose your own contradictions. The best material often comes from the gap between how you want to appear and how you actually behave.
Honest
observation of your own inconsistencies makes you (and your work) relatable. Your own inconsistencies are likely ours, too.
3. PAIRING OF PHRASES
Each
phrase is carefully chosen to sound initially reasonable before (plot twist!) it's not reasonable at all.
Disparate sources suggests thoroughness... until Annie pairs it with differing
degrees of credibility.
Analyzing sounds scientific... until paired with sophomore-year scientific literacy.
The language maintains an academic veneer while systematically blowing up any pretense of rigor.
>> KILLER tip: Fancy words to describe ordinary failures is another place where humor shines. What if you use lofty language to describe very mundane, human, relatable mistakes?
4. RHYTHM + ESCALATION
The sentence builds like a slow-motion highway pileup.
It begins with relatively benign admissions and accelerates through increasingly funny/damning revelations, ending with the devastating one-two punch of single-issue neuroticism and a penchant for online shopping, suddenly revealing the real triggers behind said research.
>> KILLER tip: Use the "reasonable → concerning → absurd" pattern.
Like this:
Start with a setup that sounds responsible → Add details that create doubt → End with the embarrassing yet human truth.
5. STRATEGIC SENTENCE LENGTH
It's a loooooong sentence; the longest in the piece. It stands out because of the rhythm, the building tension, and because it tells an entire story in 42 words.
>> KILLER tip: Use one long sentence strategically. A single escalating sentence can build momentum that shorter sentences can't achieve.
But the key is to use long sentences sparingly... too many and you bog down the reader.
* * *
MORE COOKIE-CUTTER, LESS KILLER
Annie's sentence reminds us what writing can be when it's full-body human: layered, specific, a little unhinged.
But what happens when we let machines write most of what we read?
A growing body of research suggests that AI doesn't just mimic our language—it reshapes it, too. In the 18 months after ChatGPT's release, words like meticulous, delve, realm, and adept surged in
popularity—used up to 51% more than before.
You've probably seen it: the rising tide of generic copy. The sentences that read like they've been through a rinse cycle too many times. More cookie-cutter; less KILLER.
(Tides. Rinse
cycle. Cookie cutter. Yikes I've tossed too many analogies in that last paragraph, haven't I? Whoops.)
The problem isn't the words themselves—it's how AI flattens everything: tone, texture,
regional quirks, voice.
We've spent decades trying to whack-a-mole buzzwords from our professional vocabulary; now AI flounces in to make us all sound the same. Again.
The Case for Deliberate Over Default
Isn't there an upside to AI?
Of
course.
The problem isn't using AI—it's when AI becomes the default. When we copy/paste whatever the tool spits out—when we trust it more than we trust ourselves—then we start sounding like
we're delving meticulously into the realm of the adept. Suddenly we're all the same.
The real tension isn't AI vs. human. It's default vs.
deliberate.
The best writing has always come from humans willing to slow down and make intentional choices.
Use AI, if you wish, to give yourself more space to lean into the human stuff: tone, texture, truth. Don't let convenience undermine your craft.
It's a nuanced approach. And nuance is hard. We like clarity. We want things to be yes/no, good/bad, smart/dumb, art/content.
Which is why, lately, I've been obsessed with practical ways to stay human in the age of Artificial:
A single sentence that surprises, subverts, escalates,
and delights.
And serves as inspiration to us all.
