# I can't prevent gpt 3.5 from using certain words **URL:** \ **Category:** Prompting\ **Created:** [April 18, 2023, 9:01pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/i-cant-prevent-gpt-3-5-from-using-certain-words/167298 "2023-04-18T21:01:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Victort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/3be4f8/32.png) [@Victort](https://community.openai.com/u/Victort)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 9:01pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/i-cant-prevent-gpt-3-5-from-using-certain-words/167298/1 "2023-04-18T21:01:23Z")
Hello everyone, so I’ve struggling with this for some long hours by now: There is a list of words I don’t want gpt to use in its output and it doesn’t matter how I state this in the prompt, it keeps using them. I’ve tried things like: “Do not use the following words: [“banana”, “apple”]”. Then I learned gpt isn’t very good with negative requests… then I tried: “Refrain from using the following words: “apple”, “banana”” … It didn’t help, it keeps including the forbidden words. Anyone has a similar issue? Anyone knows how to solve it? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![cd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@cd](https://community.openai.com/u/cd)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 9:18pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/i-cant-prevent-gpt-3-5-from-using-certain-words/167298/2 "2023-04-18T21:18:11Z")
Assuming you are using the api, Did you put it in the prompt or system command. Sadly 3.5 does not pay as much attention to instructions as 4 - my advice is to capture the output programmatically and if it contains your words, feed back and ask ti amend. I did a quick test just now and that seems to solve it for you ---
**Author:** ![zeki.unyildiz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/openai1/user_avatar/community.openai.com/zeki.unyildiz/32/32549_2.png) [@zeki.unyildiz](https://community.openai.com/u/zeki.unyildiz)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 9:54pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/i-cant-prevent-gpt-3-5-from-using-certain-words/167298/3 "2023-04-18T21:54:19Z")
Unfortunately, there is such an issue in 3.5. I experienced a similar problem, but I solved it with GPT-4.