Discouraged

[ElectricBlue]

That's one of the things I'm finding with Grammarly. Most of my typos get picked up by Word, but Grammarly finds those that would seem correct but are not when taken in context.

There's typos and poor grammar,

It's a good example of a judgement call - "there are" is grammatically correct but colloquially wrong, for me.

If you say them both out loud, "there are typos and poor grammar" to me sounds prissy and fussy, old fuddy duddy. Whereas how I wrote it is how I'd say it, much easier on the tongue, more how I'd say it in a conversation. But grammatically incorrect...

 

[Boxlicker101]

Grammarly found 76 critical errors in 9,999 words of mine. As I said above I disagreed with 74 (corrected to 73) of those.

Of that 73, at least 25 would have added commas I consider unnecessary and intrusive. Many of the rest would have made my writing less intelligible because Grammarly was trying to correct meaning to something I didn't intend and correcting dialogue that isn't always perfectly grammatical.

But in the quote? Grammarly correctly says that 'there's' is incorrect. It should read 'there are' before 'typos and poor grammar'.

But "there's" is not incorrect in some contexts. "There's only one right way and there are several wrong ways."

 

[rjordan]

But "there's" is not incorrect in some contexts. "There's only one right way and there are several wrong ways."

True, and Ogg's point was Grammarly was able to discern that.

"There's only one right way and there's several wrong ways." Grammarly sees the first bold use as correct and the second as the wrong verb form.

Like spell checkers, grammar checkers have their limitations and work better if you know what the limitations are. A spell checker would see there, their and they're as correct. In any particular context, only one of them can be correct. A spell checker would let them all go through. A grammar checker would see the difference.

They are both unobtrusive tools. I see no reason not to use them. Auto-correct can go to hell, though.

rj

 

[rjordan]

It's a good example of a judgement call - "there are" is grammatically correct but colloquially wrong, for me.

If you say them both out loud, "there are typos and poor grammar" to me sounds prissy and fussy, old fuddy duddy. Whereas how I wrote it is how I'd say it, much easier on the tongue, more how I'd say it in a conversation. But grammatically incorrect...

You're changing the subject, electric. If you're WRITING something, "easier on the tongue" is irrelevant unless it's dialog meant to be spoken. As you're well aware, the written word is often very different from spoken word.

Grammarly picked up your use of 'judgement' instead of judgment, and fuddy duddy instead of fuddy-duddy.

Grammarly can be ignored. So can a hardcover Merriam-Webster. I'm not saying to slavishly follow its advice. I'm saying it's a tool not unlike the shelf of references we used to have over our writing desks. I still use my Thesaurus...to prop up my monitor to get it at eye level.

rj

 

[sr71plt]

It's a good example of a judgement call - "there are" is grammatically correct but colloquially wrong, for me.

If you say them both out loud, "there are typos and poor grammar" to me sounds prissy and fussy, old fuddy duddy. Whereas how I wrote it is how I'd say it, much easier on the tongue, more how I'd say it in a conversation. But grammatically incorrect...

"There's typos and poor grammar" is doubly wrong and, in this case, double wrongs don't make right. "Typos" is plural and "typos and poor grammar" make up a plural.

Fingernails on blackboard.

 

[ElectricBlue]

"There's typos and poor grammar" is doubly wrong and, in this case, double wrongs don't make right. "Typos" is plural and "typos and poor grammar" make up a plural.

Fingernails on blackboard.

Agree, which is why I copped it on the chin.

I still don't think I'd say "there are typos and poor grammar" in a casual spoken conversation though. Which is why I expressedly used the word " colloquial" in my post - I was illustrating that conversation is very often not grammatically correct, but can still be understood.

rjordan - "judgement" is a legitimate spelling - your grammarly doesn't know I'm Australian, but that's ok.

 

[dabbler]

hjuuyytt

 

[rjordan]

Agree, which is why I copped it on the chin.

I still don't think I'd say "there are typos and poor grammar" in a casual spoken conversation though. Which is why I expressedly used the word " colloquial" in my post - I was illustrating that conversation is very often not grammatically correct, but can still be understood.

rjordan - "judgement" is a legitimate spelling - your grammarly doesn't know I'm Australian, but that's ok.

I'm also guilty of not knowing you're Australian. Sorry. In any event, I wasn't being critical. I was just pointing out that Grammarly can be discerning. Ogg says it can be set for UK English. That might be closer to whatever the hell you guys speak down there.

When my wife and I traveled we'd make a game of trying to identify what language people were speaking. We were in a hotel restaurant in London eavesdropping on a couple at breakfast. We called it a tie, neither of us able to figure out what language they were speaking. Suddenly, it came to my wife. They were speaking English, or at least some dialect of it.

I have the same difficulty understanding Australian accents for some reason. I can identify that you are speaking English, but pronunciation often takes an unexpected mid-word turn and I lose track of the next few words trying to figure it out.

rj

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxlicker101 View Post

But "there's" is not incorrect in some contexts. "There's only one right way and there are several wrong ways."

True, and Ogg's point was Grammarly was able to discern that.

"There's only one right way and there's several wrong ways." Grammarly sees the first bold use as correct and the second as the wrong verb form.

Like spell checkers, grammar checkers have their limitations and work better if you know what the limitations are. A spell checker would see there, their and they're as correct. In any particular context, only one of them can be correct. A spell checker would let them all go through. A grammar checker would see the difference.

They are both unobtrusive tools. I see no reason not to use them. Auto-correct can go to hell, though.
j

My sentence is a compound sentence and the subject of the first clause is "way." The verb or predicate is "is." The subject of the second clause is "ways" and the verb or predicate is "are."

 

[geronimo_appleby]

and then along came Cormac McCarthy.

 

[rjordan]

and then along came Cormac McCarthy.

I'm not sure what you mean or which post you are replying to. McCarthy is one of my all-time top 5 writers. I've read everything of his I can find including his infrequent interviews.

Just for fun, I ran the first 4 pages of "The Road" through the online version of Grammarly. It is surprisingly clean, meaning only that it mostly conforms to the 250 rules Grammarly claims are checked in the free version. Virtually all of them were comma suggestions. He uses them sparingly so no surprise there.

There were also a couple complaints about "confusing word choice". One was gun-metaling. Another was something about better visibility "at day" which I took as "when the sun came up". He uses some words in unusual ways like that. I think a human editor would at least mark them on a manuscript for consideration. That's what Grammarly is doing.

There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. He uses language in unusual ways for prose, but he doesn't seem to flagrantly violate norms in grammar.

I'm going to run the whole book tomorrow, and see if there is any pattern. Generally, though, I think this is further evidence that a good grammar checker is useful for creative writing.

If there's another Cormac McCarthy book that might be worth trying, let me know. I have them all in epub format. It's easy to convert them to text files.

rj

 

[sr71plt]

Quite possible some of these anonymous comments are from those under 18 that should not be here anyway.

Users with accounts (and using them) can be underage too. There's no way to really control that.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm also guilty of not knowing you're Australian. Sorry. In any event, I wasn't being critical. I was just pointing out that Grammarly can be discerning. Ogg says it can be set for UK English. That might be closer to whatever the hell you guys speak down there.

I have the same difficulty understanding Australian accents for some reason. I can identify that you are speaking English, but pronunciation often takes an unexpected mid-word turn and I lose track of the next few words trying to figure it out.

rj

No worries rj. In fact, my accent confuses people all the time - my mother always kept her very mid-country English accent - we moved to Australia in the mid sixties when I was six - and some must have brushed off. People wonder if I'm English, South African, East Coast Australian, West Coast Australian, God forbid New Zealander... "you're not from around here, are you?" "Maybe."

 

[Bramblethorn]

It's means it is. Its' means belonging to it.

Nope. No apostrophe for possessive "its".

Mr Wankstain's means belonging to Mr Wankstain.

...or "Mr Wankstain is".

 

[oggbashan]

...

rjordan - "judgement" is a legitimate spelling - your grammarly doesn't know I'm Australian, but that's ok.

Grammarly can be set to UK English and you can add your own words to the custom dictionary. Australian spelling is closer to UK English than US but has many words and uses that would not be standard UK English.

The first word processor I used for writing stories was WordStar originally 1512 for use on an IBM XT and clones and updated to WordStar 2000+. Both had the facility to create their own custom dictionaries whenever they challenged a word or spelling I had used. My first additions were place-names but I used a larger vocabulary than the standard WordStar dictionary covered.

By the time I had abandoned WordStar 2000+ because it didn't work well with Windows my custom dictionary was three times larger than the standard one.

Even now Word doesn't recognise some of the words I use. BUT - that is a hint to me that my readers might not understand that word.

 

[latecomer91364]

Don't be discouraged. Five cents, please.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/christmasspecials/images/2/20/Lucy%27s_psychiatry_booth.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161102224003

 

[pillum]

I get the same

Hi, don't get discouraged, I just started to post (only two so far) and I was surprised at the venom I got for my first one. I write stories because I like to, so the negativity does not bother me too much. I'd be happier with positive comments from those who don't particularly like my writing style rather than the usual anonymous drivel, but there you go, it's symptomatic of people who can hide behind anonymity.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Hi, don't get discouraged, I just started to post (only two so far) and I was surprised at the venom I got for my first one. I write stories because I like to, so the negativity does not bother me too much. I'd be happier with positive comments from those who don't particularly like my writing style rather than the usual anonymous drivel, but there you go, it's symptomatic of people who can hide behind anonymity.

And the categories you post stories in.

 

[pillum]

@Chloe

I post in LW category Chloe, I don't claim to know all aspects of love that should be posted there, neither do you. To (slightly) misquote a really good writer "There are more things in heaven and earth Chloe, than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

 

[rjordan]

I'm going to run the whole book tomorrow, and see if there is any pattern. Generally, though, I think this is further evidence that a good grammar checker is useful for creative writing.
rj

OK, quoting myself is a bad sign. Anyway, I did the first 100K characters of The Road in Grammarly. Grammarly objected to hundreds of things, but they fit certain patterns peculiar to Cormac McCarthy's "style".

The vast majority of Grammarly hits were for contractions of "not". Didn't, hadn't, etc. McCarthy never used a single apostrophe for this. They became didn't, hadnt, etc. Over 100 of them were for this problem.

The next biggest thing was running together words that according to Grammarly should be hyphenated or split into two words. Cashregister, trashdrum, oilbottles, pipebowl, etc.

Over a dozen uses of the word "in" when "on" would normally be used. I have a good friend whose native language is Spanish, and she is constantly confused as to which to use in English. In McCarthy's case, "standing in the floor" when he meant "standing on the floor". Lighting a fire in the floor when he meant lighting it on the floor.

The next most frequent Grammarly hit was for not including a comma after a short prepositional phrase. Like the start of my next paragraph. McCarthy never uses them. Either way is OK. I like them.

Other than these, Grammarly hits are for a variety of things that are Cormac McCarthy being Cormac McCarthy. Poetic uses of words sometimes got the admonition "Possibly confused use of word" or "Possibly miswritten word".

Also there was lots of terse dialog in the sample I used. I ignored most advice in those sections. Grammarly wouldn't let "You musnt" alone. It's perfectly OK in the dialog. Also, McCarthy doesn't use quotation marks. Grammarly doesn't check for them as it would have no way of knowing if it was dialog or not without them!

So I stand by what I said. Grammarly is a useful tool if used wisely. That goes for all the tools in my workshop as well. A hand tool doesn't make you a mechanic any more than a grammar checkere makes you a writer.

I'm not doing any more with this. I hope it's of use to someone. If not, fucking 1-bomb me and move on.

rj

 

[dabbler]

tuuiyyy

 

[dabbler]

jhhuyttt

 

[oggbashan]

One thing that makes me blink.

Naming someone as Randy.

That has a specific meaning in British English.

 

[rjordan]

One thing that makes me blink.

Naming someone as Randy.

That has a specific meaning in British English.

Randy means the same in American English. But then Peter, Dick and Willie are well known as more than male names to.

rj

 

[sr71plt]

Bruce or Lance are fun names.