Grammar checker rant

[Venusian Broon]

My biggest bone about M$ word is the ability of it to randomly switch, despite all my best efforts digging deep into the heart of the program and making sure it is set up correctly, from UK spelling to US spelling.

What is even worse, but not grammar related, is when my PC decides to switch from UK keyboard to the US one. Which as far as I can see only switches the postions of the characters " and @. But of course when you are in the middle of a bunch of dialogue it is extremely irritating - my left middle finger, along with many other uses, has been trained to instinctively to find the ".

If that happens to anyone else and they think it is a fault - I found an easy solution that (so far, seems to) work.

 

[JunkMonkey]

What is even worse, but not grammar related, is when my PC decides to switch from UK keyboard to the US one. Which as far as I can see only switches the postions of the characters " and @.

There are other differences, the Pound Sterling symbol (shift 3) is replaced by the pound or hash symbol #.

BTW, does anyone know a a way of getting ANY Word-like package (I use Open Office) to highlight homophones (e.g.holey, holy, wholly)?

 

[Venusian Broon]

There are other differences, the Pound Sterling symbol (shift 3) is replaced by the pound or hash symbol #.

In general Pound sterlings and my writing are so far apart that I didn't notice that one - it's barely been used

 

[Boneman]

You can tell I'm editing, can't you? I keep coming across more of the little devils but this one is staggering. I put:

“I, Garryd Westmaine, hereby give my iron oath that I shall not reveal to any other person, etc"

and the grammar checker wanted this:

“I, Garryd Westmaine, hereby do not give my iron oath that I shall not reveal to any other person, etc"

That's way beyond grammar checking, that's changing my whole story!

 

[Abernovo]

Heh! That sort of suggestion could change a few occasions.

'Do you take this woman/man to be your lawful wedded wife/husband?'

'I do.'
______Did you mean: I do not?

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I begin to think that grammar checker knows something you don't. All shall be revealed shortly, I'm sure.

 

[J Riff]

I'd offturn the bloody thing awful. No machine me can tell when I've mistaked. It is good for learners of English, perhaps? Yes.

 

[Gumboot]

I never, ever run spell checker or the grammar checker. Instead I just always have it set so it puts in the red and green underlines on errors. I'm confident of my own ability to decide which of those underlines can be ignored and which identify errors. The only thing I use the software for is to bring the potential error to my attention so I can decide if it needs fixing.

Actually I use Scrivener now anyway, and I must say Scrivener's auto-correct function is one thing about that software that really frustrates me, particularly given I write fantasy, which inherently involves a lot of invented words.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

For him to have been given a place beside her lady, to be exalted as her heir was worth everything she had sacrificed: a husband – no tribal man would have her, not with a child by another – and proper place in the tribe; the years where she hadn’t dared left their settlement to ensure Baelan was kept secret; the months with him quickening, growing inside her with his father’s power running through him; the fear as he came into his own power.


Word, I am, astoundingly, aware this is a long sentence. It is why I have placed a colon and a number of semi-colons within it. It is, in fact, a long list. Thankyou for listening.

Grrrr.

 

[Ursa major]

They never seem to get this right.

If I recall correctly, WordXP would give a better readability score to a paragraph where the sentences were separated by semicolons rather than full stops. Daft, really. I thought that Word2007 had come to its senses by not being so silly, but it seems the pendulum has swung the other way. Still daft.

 

[Boneman]

Now it's trying to turn my narrator into Yoda...

“D’you want to come along?”

suggested changing to:


“D’you wants to come along?”

 

[martin321]

Now it's trying to turn my narrator into Yoda...

“D’you want to come along?”

suggested changing to:


“D’you wants to come along?”

It's not quite as silly as it seems. I'm pretty sure that it thinks "D'you" is a French name along the lines of "D'Youville" or "D'Artagnan". Although in an English text that's pretty unlikely, so they should have coded in an exception for "D'you".

 

[The Judge]

I had another yesterday. There's a fight and excrement is being thrown (primitive biological warfare...) and when I wrote

[FONT=&quot]he fell to his knees, spitting and scrabbling to wipe the sh*t from his nose and mouth[/FONT]

spellchecker, in its wisdom, thought it should be

[FONT=&quot]he fell to his knees, spitting and scrabbling to wipe the shift from his nose and mouth[/FONT]

Perhaps it thinks he's been gagged in some kind of 50 Shades bedroom scene!

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I'm writing about a cinema burning down in the debut atrocity of a super villain called Pyromania. The usher is warning Our Hero that Cinema Five is still full of people, since the movie hasn't finished yet. Since I haven't come up with a name for the movie, the sentence reads:

'I think there are still people in Cinema Five,’ said the usher. ‘The eight o’clock session of won’t finish for another fifteen minutes.’

Spellcheck is happy with this sentence as it is! Move along, people. No grammar problems to see here.

 

[Ursa major]

As an aside, DEO, that film has to be Roger Corman's Fall of the House of Usher**.









** - It was called this when shown on the TV in the UK many years ago. Apparetnly it has two other names.

 

[Boneman]

It's not quite as silly as it seems. I'm pretty sure that it thinks "D'you" is a French name along the lines of "D'Youville" or "D'Artagnan". Although in an English text that's pretty unlikely, so they should have coded in an exception for "D'you".

Aah... you learn something every day, thanks! Note to self: turn off French influence on laptop.

Can we make this thread a sticky, please????

 

[Boneman]

Rewrites and edits do throw up things I'd missed before, because I assumed the underlining was for lack of verbs etc, but this one showed itself: (and I chnaged it becasue I thought it was badly written, not becasue of the suggestion)

Your best protection is to be undistinguished, a bland person that people know, but know nothing of.


became:

Your best protection is to be undistinguished, bland people that people know, but know nothing of.

 

[Parson]

I'm not sure how many of you glance at the banner advertisements, but I am quite regularly getting one for a grammar checker. This must prove that we have one of those ubiquitous spiders who look for words but not sense. Kinda, like a grammar checker.

Boneman: I assume you noticed but you did change a singular person to a plural people. As I understand the situation you would also have to change the tense of the referred to subject. Were you addressing a group, or is this (as it sounds to me) a piece of advice from one person to another.


Hm, thinking about it, it's likely a group and you were using a singular noun to address each of the group individually. --- Often done, but not sure that's a correct usage.

 

[Boneman]

Parson: I told you it was badly written: here's the alternative I settled on (for now!). It is one individual giving advice to another and she's not terribly well-educated, which is why she mixes plurals in speech...

Your best protection is to become undistinguished, bland. People will know you, but know nothing of you.”

 

[Parson]

Parson: I told you it was badly written: here's the alternative I settled on (for now!). It is one individual giving advice to another and she's not terribly well-educated, which is why she mixes plurals in speech...

Your best protection is to become undistinguished, bland. People will know you, but know nothing of you.”

That is wonderful! Clear, concise, and memorable.