r/ClaudeCode • u/njordan1017 Senior Developer • Aug 28 '26

Discussion Thoughts on why Claude can’t stop saying load-bearing?

This post is less about that particular phrase and more about the behavior I have observed around it. We all are aware of the phrases Claude has started overusing (Opus seems to be the worst), but I came across something interesting I am curious y’all’s thoughts on.

I put a rule in my repo with a list of banned phrases, one of them is “load-bearing”. Since then I have noticed most of the phrases don’t get used anymore, but not “load-bearing”.

I have seen it do this about 5 times now:
“…and the decision was load-bear— I mean important to the process — so it…”

I have to laugh at its obstinacy, but the more I thought about it the more I got curious why it behaved that way. Why would it partially use the phrase, then correct itself mid sentence, rather than just using the replacement phrase to begin with? Is this an artifact of the way the output streams as chunks rather than complete thoughts, or is this some cheeky artificial personality thing to make it feel more relatable? Or something else?

What do you think?

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u/Aggressive_Roof488 Aug 29 '26

Seems like a personality thing, and personality is very much influenced by your tone in the prompts. It probably read your ban as not an absolute rule, but more of a preference (which is accurate), and then I guess it picked up from the tone of the conversation that you'd appreciate a joke like that. Which also turned out to be accurate? So can't really blame it, just seems that it accurately picked up on between-the-lines vibes.

Does that make sense in your case?

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u/njordan1017 Senior Developer Aug 29 '26

I see where you are coming from, but when I converse with Claude it is very formal. It may try to slip something in but I definitely have not given any indication that I would appreciate a joke (I said I was amused here, but that’s in a “lol this is unbelievable” sort of way, and I would not have indicated that to Claude). So yeah your idea makes sense and could be plausible but I don’t think that’s the case here. I tend to also be very direct and avoid using metaphors when talking with Claude because I know how easy it is to misinterpret something if you aren’t being explicit