Geoff Pullum, over at the Language Log, tells us why you should not let Microsoft's grammar checker proofread your writing: "An egg out of which it developed must logically have preceded every chicken" is apparently acceptable English prose, but "Every chicken must logically have been preceded by an egg out of which it developed" is not.
Lord spare us.
If you use Word, please turn off the grammar checker. Your readers will thank you.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Please don't use "Redmond" like that...
ReplyDeleteI've tweaked the CSS so that the ads should not cover text. You may get odd formatting if you have a REALLY narrow browser, though.
ReplyDeleteI TA classes for engineering, and many of my students ("most", in some semesters) speak english as a foreign language. Engineers aren't known for their communication skills to begin with, but engineers who are picking their way through a second language are worse still.
ReplyDeleteGrammar check, while far (very very far) from perfect, makes reports legible and makes my job possible. I've gotten to the point where I can pick out the errors that were caused by the grammar checker (and the errors that are introduced by the spellchecker) from the errors that were never checked at all.
The grammar checker can do a lot of the mundane grammar checks, and when bare legibility is your goal (as it appears to be for most of my students) it's a fine tool to use. Nothing ever takes the place of good proof-reading, however, and more people need to know that.