zlacker

>>giulio+(OP)
"Recent large-scale upticks in the use of words like “delve” and “intricate” in certain fields, especially education and academic writing, are attributed to the widespread introduction of LLMs with a chat function, like ChatGPT, that overuses those buzzwords."

OK, but please don't do what pg did a year or so ago and dismiss anyone who wrote "delve" as AI writing. I've been using "delve" in speech for 15+ years. It's just a question where and how one learns their English.

>>milanc+p6
My company currently has a guideline that includes “therefore” and similar words as an example of literary language we should avoid using, as it makes the reader think it’s AI.

It really made me uneasy, to think that formal communication might start getting side looks.

>>kace91+vc
Words like that were banned in my English classes for being empty verbiage. It's a good policy even if it seems like a silly purpose. "Therefore" is clumsy and heavy handed in most settings.

>>viccis+gC
I’m curious about this (I’m not a native speaker). What alternative would you use when you want to emphasize a cause-effect relationship, in an engineering context for example?

“Most times A happens before B, but this order it’s not guaranteed. Therefore, there is a possibility of {whatever}.”

Alternatives that come to mind are “as a consequence”, “as a result”, “this means that”, but those are all more verbose, not less.

A simple “so” could work, but it would make the sentence longer, and the cause-effect relationship is less explicit I think.

>>kace91+7h1
Just take it out. It makes no difference. You set it up so clearly in your first example.

"Most times A happens before B, but in this order it’s not guaranteed, so there is a possibility of {whatever}."

>>viccis+sT3
That forces me to keep the phrase going though, which is my usual problem when both the A,B, and whatever are already long winded.

>>kace91+wo6
As I mentioned in a reply to the other comment, this often means you have your ordering mixed up.

As an example, here's what you original statement said (with some grammar corrected):

"Most times A happens before B, but the order is not guaranteed. Therefore, there is a possibility of {whatever}."

Here it is if you lead with the important outcome and provide the justification after, using a non-restrictive relative clause to add the fact that A often happens before B:

"There is a possibility of {whatever}, as, while A happens before B, the order is not guaranteed."

In my opinion, this is clearer in intent. It provides the important information immediately and then justifies it immediately after. The original sentence provides information without context and then contextualizes it using "therefore", which comes across a bit pedantic to me. I am a native American English speaker though, and the tone of prose does vary depending on the culture of the person reading it.