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Wording quality is style and register. Where readability formulas score difficulty, wording quality flags writing patterns that consistently hurt clarity.

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What mehen emits

Sub-metricDefault threshold
Passive voice (write-good / retext-passive pattern)Doc-type ratio from the readability ensemble.
Hedge words (Hyland 2005; ~165 entries)Flag > 3 % in non-narrative docs.
Weasel words (write-good)Count-based.
Wordy phrases (~240 entries from too-wordy / retext-simplify)Per-match count / 100 words.
Adverb density (-ly endings minus exceptions)Hemingway budget ≤ 1 per 100 words.
Nominalizations (-tion, -sion, -ment, -ence, -ance, -ity, -ness, -ism)Flag paragraph > 10 % of content words.
Expletive constructions (^(there|it)\s+(is|are|was|were))Per 100 sentences.
Lexical illusions (lower(t[i-1]) == lower(t[i]))Zero-tolerance defect.
Clichés (~700 entries)Per 1,000 words.
Non-words (irregardless → regardless, thusly → thus, …)Error-level flag.
Long sentencesWarning > 30 words, error > 40.

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Wording Quality Score

WordingQualityScore = clamp01(
    1
  − 0.18 · sat(passive_ratio;          0.25, 0.60)
  − 0.15 · sat(hedge_density;          0.02, 0.08)
  − 0.12 · sat(weasel_density;         0.01, 0.05)
  − 0.12 · sat(wordy_density;          0.01, 0.05)
  − 0.10 · sat(adverb_density;         0.02, 0.06)
  − 0.08 · sat(nominalization_density; 0.08, 0.20)
  − 0.08 · sat(long_sentence_rate;     0.05, 0.30)
  − 0.07 · sat(cliche_density;         0.002, 0.02)
  − 0.05 · (lexical_illusions > 0 ? 1 : 0)
  − 0.05 · (nonword_count     > 0 ? 1 : 0)
)
WQS is deliberately orthogonal to Filler / Lazy Risk: Filler covers repetition and specificity, WQS covers style and register.

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References

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See also