In poetry, I have some definite markers that make it very hard for me to be anonymous. But in prose, the biggest is probably my tendency to start sentences with “but” and “and.” And there you have it.
These are quirks I notice in my writing. I’m sure other people could point out many more I’m unaware of.
I overuse conjunctions to begin sentences. I recognize this and often go back through something I wrote to edit them out.
I think I overuse qualifiers. I feel this developed on this board; people will leap on absolute statements. So when I go back through and delete conjunctions, I also add in qualifiers.
I include a lot of subordinate clauses.
I use the Oxford comma. I don’t use a comma before a conjunction. I do this knowingly because I think this is better stylistically.
I often use a plural pronoun as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. I generally prefer to spell out numbers. These are also stylistic choices.
There are words I spell in the English style rather than American. I don’t know where I picked this one up; I’ve never lived in the UK.
I love metaphors.
Impressive ability to avoid the actual subject at hand due to an overweening interest in getting to my own anecdote. I know this may be a hijack, but I once rode an elephant in Thailand. Before mounting the elephant, I was standing no more than three feet from her and looking directly into her eye–it was unnerving and soul-dissolving.
IMHO hope this helps. YMMV.
If I had penned that op-ed, I would have been caught the day it was published for overuse of the phrase, ‘orange asshole of a President’.