We analyzed how @claudeai’s Opus 5.5 writes compared with Opus 5 across high-reasoning Text Arena outputs. 10 of 12 writing measures moved in a better direction. Opus 5.5 should be easier to read: - Long content words fall from 41.7% to 38.6%, the lowest share of any Claude model we analyzed. - Sentences are 17% shorter on average, dropping from 12.14 to 10.03 words. The tradeoff is length. Answers get 6% wordier, rising from 453 to 481 words on average, making Opus 5.5 give the longest answers across the Opus family. It also sounds less recognizably AI on two familiar tells: - 95% fewer em dashes - 73% fewer semicolons But a new giveaway may be emerging. Hedges and caveats such as “perhaps” and “arguably” rise 97%, from 0.39 to 0.77 per 1,000 words, the highest rate of any Claude model we analyzed. What do you think: does Opus 5.5 read more naturally?