A.I. writing test

 

The hand of the future?

 

 AI vs Human Writing

I was shocked that I preferred A.I.’s excerpts to actual human writing in a recent NYT test, “Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz.” (By Kevin Roose and Stuart A. Thompson, March 9, 2026)

In this article, you’re given five samples, each with two texts (one A.I and one human). The subjects are 1) Literary Fiction, 2) Fantasy, 3) Science Writing, 4) Historical Fiction, and 5) Poetry. The human samples are from well known writers, such as Carl Sagan and Cormac McCarthy. After you read two excerpts, you select the one you like best. In every case, I chose the A.I. excerpt.

In these particular examples, A.I. passages evoke more human experience with greater subtly than actual human writing. Being a cynic, I suspect the passages were carefully selected because of their explicit messages, but even at that, we writers need to forget about denial as a defense. We’re not going to out-write A.I. The solution is somewhere else.

If it’s any comfort, we can tell ourselves that A.I would be nowhere without us. We control the choices, so far.

 

NEW YORK TIMES link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/09/business/ai-writing-quiz.html?ae=oa&campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260311&instance_id=172326&nl=the-morning&regi_id=227682554&resp=1&segment_id=216486&user_id=3e762e87559516d79141d72aacf418b9

A,I. is stealing our brain with our permission

Words vs Numbers

 A LOOK AT WORDS AND NUMBERS

I suppose most writers are fascinated by words, as I am. Recently in a poem I wrote, I take the position that everything that exists  (whether physical, mental, emotional) has a word. In essence, you can’t think of something (much less write about it) if there’s no word for it. My hope is that readers will realize this premise is questionable. And as an aside, is it possible that language limits our imagination?

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

We communicate not just with words, but with numbers. I’ve told my sons to think of numbers as a different language. Some people hold that we developed numbers just as we developed words in a language. There are other people who will argue that there’s a difference. Numbers are not invented, they’re discovered.

ALL THINGS ARE NUMBER

So said Pythagoras. That is to say, the physical world, everything you can see, smell, taste, feel, or think is quantifiable. And with the discovery, or maybe it’s the invention, of calculus, even relationships and movement can be communicated with numbers.

UNIVERSALITY OF NUMBERS

Now that I’m into numbers over my head, I’ll back out by saying that math was my worst subject in school. Nonetheless, our fascination with numbers and our dependence on them has never been greater. Seems we’re on our way to proving Pythagoras correct.

DATA ADDICTS

For the entertainment of mathematicaphiles, The Week magazine provides a column titled “The Bottom Line.” The shear amount of data collection and analysis is mind-boggling. Numbers relay meanings and can affect our opinions, maybe even change our mind. Several random samples from The Week:

25% of unemployed persons are age 25 and over

64% of Spotify’s most popular podcasts in 2024 were men

The average commuter spends a record 63 hours a year stuck in traffic

Consumers plan to spend an average of $890/person on holiday gifts, food, etc. 

 A book titled Book of Unusual Knowledge, a Christmas gift, states that it took about 30 million hours for Stone Age workers to build Stonehenge. Who figured that out and how?

 

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE?

Now I’m getting around to another point.  More and more research and/or scientific findings depend on data collection and not infrequently on polls taken of participants.

ARE THESE FACTS OR DATA DRIBBLE?

From The Times (UK) researchers analyzed data from 86,00 adults across 27 countries to find that learning a second language may help slow aging. (As if the only variable in 86,000 people is the number of languages they speak.)

Ultra-processed foods made up 55% of the food Americans ate from 2021 to 2023 according to the Centers for Disease Control. (What’s the definition of ultra-processed food?)

Researchers at the Univ. of British Columbia discovered that people are happier doing activities when sharing with others. Some 41,000 participants were quizzed on how happy they were doing three activities. (How happy? How reliable is a person’s opinion of their own happiness? And what if they’re asked on a bad day?)

 

Every dead person is the same

 

WHAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE TRUE

 

I write poetry. I don’t necessarily write what I think is truth—or untruth for that matter. Thinking, for me, is neither true nor false. Really, isn’t it? Well, my thoughts can go a long distance without a label as to true or false.  

What’s real and what’s not real is a question I do think about. By that I mean real/unreal in a physical sense, not metaphysical (I’m dodging the argument that philosophy’s vocabulary deals with reality). Anyway, I’m sitting at my desk writing on my computer. That’s real, or at least I think it is.

 

Sometimes it’s not easy to separate physical from metaphysical lines in poetry. The murky, out-of-focus terrain between physical and metaphysical is one of the reasons I read poetry. Those lines throw a wrench into the brainworks. 

 

In writing poems, I want to make assertions that you can’t prove or disprove. For example, the last line of my poem “Lunch in a Belgian Chateau,” published in Last Stanza Poetry journal is “Every dead person is the same.” I can’t prove every dead person’s the same, but you can’t disprove it. I have a dear friend who would challenge me on this, but religious faith in an afterlife doesn’t rate as proof. 

lexicology

 

"Much Oblige"

 

My husband never heard the expression “much oblige,” which came as a surprise to me. However, when I thought about it, I haven’t heard that in ages. It was common in my childhood. If a neighbor gave you a ride, you didn’t say “thank you,” you said “much oblige.” 

 

Actually, the term has more of a masculine than feminine connotation. Expressing gratitude applies to situations where some unexpected charity is involved. In the rural area where I grew up, more generosity was expected of rural women than men, so thereby the less occasion for a woman to say “much oblige.” For example, my Aunt Myrth baked many a birthday cake for us and if anybody ever thanked her, I didn’t hear it. Her cakes weren’t unusual or unexpected. If she didn’t bake a cake, we thought nothing of that either.

 

If we ever said “thank you” in my home when I was growing up, I don’t remember it. When a family member went out of their way to help another, we didn’t thank them. It wasn’t anything special that required acknowledging. If a brother or aunt needed help planting tomatoes, we gave them help because that’s what you did in a family. Nobody expected them to say “thank you.” 

 

I’ve learned to say “thank you” from my husband, who finds it strange that my brother doesn’t thank us when we run errands for him. He’s of the old school who expects favors from us, his family. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate what we do for him. If we asked him for assistance, he would provide it, without expecting a “thank you.”

Why Am I Here?

A book of ideas on thinking 

Why Am I Here?

If you’ve asked yourself this question in a strange room after a night of heavy drinking, that’s not what I’m about. If you’ve asked it while wondering if you should try to develop a relationship with a church or synagogue, you’re the person I’m talking to.

 

If you’re like me, you have difficulty buying the Christianity message, and Judaism seems to be a religion with no benefits, except maybe cultural. You can’t escape having a belief whether or not you put any thought into it. I know some people who seem to believe that the meaning of life is a good hamburger.

 

NO ANSWERS

 

Some of us can’t accept the meaning of life even if we don’t know the meaning. Or perhaps, we can’t accept that we can’t discover a meaning. Not even hamburgers.

 

Of course, philosophers can explain it, but when’s the last time you tried reading a book by John Locke or Immanuel Kant? Even when written in English, their words are unrecognizable, like a foreign language. Or if Socrates, the writing is so dense your thoughts implode.

 

On the other hand are philosophers who advocate meditation by which you can explore the self and existence. Maybe something’s wrong with me, but the only thing I get out of meditation is frustration. Wondering how much longer I can try to get my brain into a meaningful clarity has only led to boredom. 

 

GIVING UP THE QUESTIONS

 

In the book At the Intersection of Existence, author Davis Stanard asks himself questions about existence. Why Am I Here? Davis suggests we get over that and build a belief system that allows us to live a meaningful life, whatever is out there beyond life. He doesn’t provide answers but he gives himself, and by implication the reader, permission to quit asking unanswerable questions.

At the Intersection of Existence Back Cover

appropriation

 Cultural appropriation is censorship by another name

 

One of the sessions at the SC Writers Association’s conference Saturday allowed writers to read aloud their query letter to a panel of three literary agents for critique. I made a mistake. Because I hadn’t read the directions carefully, I arrived with a pitch instead of a query letter, which I read anyway despite my embarrassment.

 

However, I couldn’t have been as disappointed with my critique as another writer who actually read a query letter. Her book, the subject of the letter, involved a story with a slave.

 

The subject of “appropriation” dominated the agents’ comments. Appropriation in writing is commonly understood to mean that a writer adopts customs, behavior, habits, etc., of a culture that’s not their own in producing a book. For example a white writer produces a story about a black, or a Latino writes about an Asian.

 

The writer at the conference who read her query letter before the panel was cautioned that we have to be careful in today’s environment. By the time the agents finished their cautionary statements, it was clear that the writer’s book had no chance of being published. The problem was her color. She was white and her story involved a black slave.

 

When it comes to cultural appropriation, a distinction should be made between historical fiction and contemporary fiction. It is easier to understand that ethnic groups have a right to claim their story as it exists today. Who better to understand the traditions, language, and ideas than one of their own members?

 

But historical fiction is another matter. The most contentious issue today is that blacks claim ownership of their history as slaves. The argument goes that they were the ones who suffered and no white (or yellow or red) person can understand this. But how can a black person living in the 21^st Century understand what their ancestors underwent over a hundred years ago?

 

A white writer has as much access to the Slave Narratives and slave autobiographies as a black writer. When you come to think of it, one of the most powerful books written about slavery was written by a white woman. Historians credit Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe with galvanizing the abolition movement. Are we to say she had no right to write this book?

 

Restricting historical fiction novels to certain authors based on ethnicity limits our perspective, imagination, concepts and understandings. The losers here are not just whites but black, reds, and yellows, the entire spectrum of literature.

 

"Query Letter" panel of literary agents

 

politically correct publishing

 

enforced virtue

 

“We will not tolerate any form of abusive behavior or bigotry in the stories we publish, nor the authors who write them.”

 

“If it should come to our attention that one of our writers has themselves published hateful material elsewhere, we want to know about it.”

 

According to Lit Mag News Roundup, two editors were forced off the masthead of literary magazines based on opinions they expressed online. Further, they’ve “seen numerous magazines announce the removal of writers’ work, based on things that writer has said on their personal page.”

 

Something to think about

The following authors were published before we became politically correct, but could they find a publisher today?

 

Rudyard Kipling

Instances of racial insensitivity and colonialist arrogance in his writings.

 

Roald Dahl

According to Dahl, the Jewish people deserved what they got during the Holocaust.

William Faulkner

Controversial portrayal of race and class.

 

Dr. Seuss

The Seuss estate stopped selling “Mulberry Street” because of the racial stereotype of an Asian man with slanted lines for eyes.

 

Charles Dickens

He publicly shamed his wife in writing, calling her mentally disturbed and malicious after she became aware of his mistress and they divorced. 

In our current publishing environment, will the books of these famous writers survive the controversy? Do we want to lose access to stories such as:

 

The Jungle Book 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 

As I Lay Dying

If I Ran the Zoo 

Oliver Twist

This is not meant to condone bigoted or hateful writing. But should the personality, beliefs, or behavior of a writer or artist keep us from experiencing the pleasure of superior work? The first, foremost, and only question should be, Can they write?

new words in 2020

 

NEW to 2021

You don’t usually think of words as having a lifetime, but consider this, some words or phrases we’ll see next year didn’t exist until 2020. Think of zoom and social distancing. And some used a century ago have died out, such as fudgel (goofing off) or twattle (to gossip).

 

My blog on words that were born in 2020 is featured this week on the Columbia II Writers Workshop. I was inspired to write it after reading about the word humaning. Do we really need this word?

 

If you Google “new words” you’ll get pages of sites. Here are samples of words I’ve taken from various sources. I’ve used them in sentences. Can you guess the meanings?

 

1) freegan—Freegans are going to change the world, one mouthful at a time.

2) techlash—If you’ve called tech support, you’ve probably experienced techlash.

3) nothingburger – The announcement of the invention of a dog umbrella was a nothingburger.

4) goat — Fans of the Dallas Cowboys think the team is goat.

5) hangry—I didn’t mean to curse, but I haven’t had lunch and I’m hangry.

 

Answers: 1) Freegan, a person who believes it’s wrong to throw away food and only eats leftovers they get for free, often from dumpsters or garbage cans. 2) Techlash, backlash against technology companies. 3) Nothingburger, an event that has less impact than expected. 4) Goat, acronym for "greatest of all time." 5) Hangry, so hungry you become angry.

 

The word mailbox is probably on its way out.

The Past

 

THE PAST DOES NOT EXIST

 

During the Thanksgiving visit, my son said, “The past does not exist.” For instance, Napoleon doesn’t exist. Nor does Marilyn Monroe. Or Amelia Earhart. Or Gandhi. Or Malcolm X.

 

In the sense that we can’t call them on the phone, that’s true. According to my dictionary, the definition of exist is to live, to have “objective being.” Objective confused me, so I went back to the dictionary for "not dependent on the mind for existence."

 

Then we can also say quill pens don’t exist nor ice boxes nor passenger pigeons.

 

But do memories exist? Do thoughts? If we say these don’t exist, what would we be without them? If they don’t exist, then what is the word to describe their presence in us?

 

The poetry in my chapbook “Time Carries All Things Away” deals with the past and how it has come to the present in me. Maybe my parents don’t exist, but I exist. I have memories of them. Do my memories exist?

 

My chapbook exists and you can buy one from me or from Main Street Rag. It costs $12.00 plus shipping. Available from me at fairviewnewssc at gmail.com. Or Main Street Rag at http://mainstreetragbookstore.com/?s=bonnie+stanard.

 

Supper in Silence

MY TACITURN FAMILY

Some of us grew up in quiet families. I can remember sitting at the table with my family eating supper in silence. Or riding in the car with my father without saying a word. While in college, I commuted 25 miles to a summer job with my uncle. Those were long silent rides, especially at night, for we both worked the second shift, from 3:00 PM – 11:00 PM. I also remember nights when he woke up when the car bumped off the road. It still puzzles me why I didn’t wake him as he was falling asleep at the wheel. I knew what was happening.

As a youngster, nobody asked me (or my brothers and sister) about my day at school. And my parents didn’t talk about what they did. If a classmate made fun of me, I kept it to myself. I understood that it was due to a deficiency of mine.

In my poetry chapbook, Time Carries All Things Away, I write about a lifesyle of native understandings without benefit of words. Here’s from the poem “My Sister and Me.”

It wasn’t necessary to learn names

of things like weeds.

We knew such as dandelion, spurge,

and clover by their preference

for sun or shade;

by their predilection

for parking or creeping

The poem ends with my going to school and meeting conversations as I had never experienced before. And what a dramatic difference that made.

Time Carries All Things Away is available from MainStreet Rag publishing for $12 plus shipping.

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/time-carries-all-things-away-bonnie-stanard/

Writing Poetry

THE UNEASY WORLD OF POETRY

I’ll have three poems published in the Fall 2020 issue of Muddy River Review. Despite my intention to spend more time on prose, lately most of my efforts have been in writing poetry.

The limitations of our language are a source of my ongoing sense of frustration. I try to put into words my ideas that don’t have words. Poetry is the medium that allows me to question meanings, not just of words but of my experiences and concepts.

The older I get the more I realize my knowledge is very limited and not just because of words. In addition to the confines of intellect, lack of experiences has put me into a little box. This has become painfully apparent on many occasions, but especially recently as I’ve watched “The Silk Road” on Prime TV. I come away from every episode realizing what a tiny speck of the world I call my home.

I’ll post a reminder when the three poems will be published in Muddy River. “Uneasy Most of the Time” is about our life style and how it makes me feel. In “Yellow Pears” I wonder if I’ve made a good decision. “Clouds By Degree” is a reminder that bad moods are a part of being human.

Amer Library Association & censorship

THE QUESTION OF SHOULD

On the American Libraray Association's website is a list of children’s and young adult books that have been challenged in the media and reported to the ALA as containing explicit sexuality, drug use, profanity and LGBT characters. One, described as being “disgusting and all around offensive,” received positive reviews in Newsweek and the NYT.

Most of these books have won prestigious awards, such as the Caldecott Honor Award and National Book Award or been named Stonewall Honor Books and Printz Honor recipients. 

In an introduction to the list, the American Library Association (ALA) notes that “each book was threatened with removal from spaces where diverse ideas and perspectives should be welcomed.” 

The word “should” is the monster that haunts all of us. Who should decide what children should read? The ALA? The government? The media? Parents? 

Will I ever be smart enough to overcome my confusion about should?

word list, Cola II

  

WORDS

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“Sham Words” is the title of the Columbia II Writers’ Workshop blog this week. I wrote this article about words I dislike. If words had smells, these would be on my stinky list. You’ll find many of them in this sentence:

It took forever, but then many very beautiful words suddenly began to empower me with a really good vocabulary.

Check out the Columbia II blog to see if you’ve identified the stinkies.

post festival

ALAS!

These things happen. I didn't make it to the Congaree Blue Grass Festival yesterday. A family medical emergency. Everything seems to be okay today. Sorry I missed the festivities and hanging out with artists, writers, and readers. My writing friend Mike Long held down the tent and had a good day with sales. 

Alas is an exclamation dating back to Middle English. I'm working on a story that takes place in 1670s France and have been reading up on dated words and expressions. So I'll say fare-thee-well.

SC Humanities Council

SPEAKERS BUREAU 

I'm officially on the roster as a presenter for the Speakers Bureau of the SC Humanities Council. It's an honor to be on a list of such diverse and distinguished SC natives. Fellow Columbia II writer Kasie Whitener has also been added to the roster. 

I like to get to know the people attending my events, and to make it easier, I incorporate activities to engage them in the discussion. I've just finished printing copies of three ten-page booklets for "Acting On Poetry." Participants will choose a poem from one of the three booklets (Free Verse, Sonnet, or Blank Verse) to read before the group. 

My cover graphic says something about Free Verse

In researching the poems, I was reminded of what I like about poetry (despite my disappointment with some of the current works being published). Poetry can force us to look beyond the everyday. Or at other times, it reveals the wonder in the everyday. Denise Levertov and Tony Hoagland are two of my favorite poets. 

If you know of a group interested in literature and would like something different for a meeting, think about one of my presentations. In addition to "Acting On Poetry," I'll be tour guide for two other literary adventures:
 
PROSE POEMS, OR IS IT FLASH FICTION?
In these two literary forms, a fine line (which isn’t easily defined) divides prose from poetry. We'll read samples of each and see if we can figure out which camp the publishers put them into. After getting some clarity about what's not clear, we'll put pen to paper and write our own short work and call it either prose or poetry.

A DEMANDING GENRE—HISTORICAL FICTION
This presentation begins with a True-False test with trick questions, tricky because Historical Fiction has become controversial. As a writer of the genre, I can see both sides of the argument (which is too much to discuss here), and I'll find out how others see it. To those writers considering Historical Fiction, I'll remind them of the research involved and will provide examples of my research in writing the Westfall series of antebellum novels.

To schedule my presentations contact the SC Humanities Council. Information is online at http://schumanities.org/projects/speakers/speakers-faq. Most presentations (including mine) charge a fee of $250. The phone number is 803-771-2477. 
 

Cover graphic for my "Blank Verse" booklet

Show, Don't Tell

 Show, Don’t Tell

We writers hear this all the time. In other words, don’t make a habit of labeling  characters or places with adjectives. Instead, describe using sensory details to draw the reader into the story. This is not to say adjectives don’t have a place in our language, but too often they’re used as a shortcut. The objective is to write in a way that evokes an experience.

+ instead of he was charming -- He watched with lively eyes and listened.

+ instead of she was beautiful -- Children beamed when she strolled by.

+ instead of lonely -- His hollow apartment echoed the street below.

The idea is to engage the reader in the physical world we create. That’s a matter of detailing characteristics of any given thing/person/place. Rather than labeling a car new, you’d write about the lustrous paint or the smell of leather. Adjectives can contribute to our sensory experience, as in sticky paper, bitter taste, or blue angel. The problem develops with subjective adjectives, such as awesome, difficult, funny, or harsh. These are based on opinion and have almost no valid meaning.

“For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle.”—John Cheever

A photograph might help us get away from telling adjectives. In other words, instead of “the old, abandoned ruins of a church,” we might say “a building of lost faith, now only walls with vacant windows.” 

 

Chapel of Ease, St. Helena Island, SC, Built 1740, Burned 1886 

Anton Chekov said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” 

  

 

n-word

N-word in the News Again

It’s a strange thing that you can’t say the word nigger in order to condemn its connotation without getting hit with headlines. Even President Obama can’t. The reaction to that word, regardless of its context, is provocative and electrifying.

No good use for it

We know this word causes pain for blacks. It is racially divisive. For many whites it arouses feelings of guilt about our history, particularly in the South. Anybody using that word in conversation today is saying more about himself that about any African American.

It terrifies publishers

NewSouth Publishing reprinted Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and removed the word nigger so black children won’t feel demeaned by reading it. Presumably NewSouth believes it will improve the lives of African Americans if we eradicate that word not only from our contemporary vocabulary, but from history as well.

There are those who would follow NewSouth’s lead and remove the word from print—take it out of antebellum novels, historic newspapers and magazines, the slave narratives, and antiquarian books. 

Easy Reading

The history of our country, especially the South, is easier to read when we don’t have nigger to remind us that some of us suffered atrocities in slavery and some of us tyrannized our fellowman. At the same time, getting rid of the word will do away with some of the ridicule and scorn whites inflicted and slaves endured in the 19th Century.

Our history is popular reading for many Americans. We can enjoy it more and we can like ourselves better when we have a history we can admire. Is this the kind of history we need?

An inflammatory history produces inflammatory words
Photo Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Words by Design

LANGUAGE FANATICS

I was just skimming the November issue of the magazine Fast Company, which happened to be in my kitchen when I ate breakfast. By the third or fourth page, its language was growling at me. Is it just me, or is the media getting aggressive with language? All you have to do is read cover pages on a magazine rack and you’ll be threatened with idiocy if you don’t get in the groove or at least buy the magazine.

These phrases taken from Fast Company and my interpretation :

—three great books and everything else you need to try right now
         it’s urgent, and you’re needy

—the most dangerous weapon of all
         you’re going to die if you don’t pay attention

—effects of technology [is] rampant
         you’re so dependent and don’t know it

—a latte with art
         your latte is inadequate, so’s your art

—music-driven culture
         it’s on overdrive and you don’t know about it?

—We live in real-time now
         where have you been?

—who wants to wait for good kicks?

         your life is boring, shake it up

—the business world’s most forward-thinking people
         if you don’t know these guys, you’re a bonehead

This wouldn’t be so disappointing if magazines delivered on the promises. However, if you look past the hyperbole, you’ll find that as a general rule, the articles contain rehashed information you already know. I’ve used Fast Company as an example, but it is only one of many such magazines.