Voices
Theo spots 'THEY REMOVED THE EMDASHES' in Opus 5.5, and its writing guidance now says no em dashes
Theo (t3.gg) posted that Opus 5.5 is "SMALLER than Opus 5??" and credited post-training gains, then separately posted that the em dashes are gone. A September 23 StashBase analysis quotes Opus 5.5 writing guidance that says "No em dashes. Use commas, parentheses, or a new sentence," and cites Arena's August finding that Opus 5 used em dashes 2.3x as often as Opus 4.5 and averaged 510 words per response against 158. Box reported Opus 5.5 using a third of Opus 5's tokens with answers 40% less verbose. StashBase says groups of three and flourish words still show up in long pieces unless the prompt names them.
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