Who Needs Copy Editors, Anyway?

[Bramblethorn]

"waste" is a legitimate word, so Word spellcheck won't highlight it as a questionable spelling (ergo underline it in red) if the intended word was "waist." I think that's what he meant. (It might underline it in blue as a grammar challenge, though.)

Not sure how it'd pick it up even as a grammar challenge - is there any situation where "waist" is grammatically valid but "waste" as noun wouldn't be?

 

[oggbashan]

I have a couple of word errors in almost every story but I try to avoid them. When I have finished a story and checked it for typos and spelling I change the font and font size on a copy. I read it again. The different appearance helps to show errors I would otherwise overlook. If the story is important I might print off a hard copy and re-read it.

Word will find some genuine typos such as 'taht' for 'that' but it irritates me more with its insistence on highlighting 'fragments' in dialogue. How many people always have a conversation in complete grammatical sentences?

Word can be useful when I use an unusual word. I know what I mean, and exactly what I intended the word to convey, but if Word doesn't recognise it - the reader might not. A Thesaurus has its uses but if the exact meaning can only be conveyed by an obscure word then I need to rewrite.

Readers shouldn't need a large heavy dictionary when reading stories on Literotica.

 

[sr71plt]

Not sure how it'd pick it up even as a grammar challenge - is there any situation where "waist" is grammatically valid but "waste" as noun wouldn't be?

If a word just doesn't fit the context, Word (unless you have that element turned off) sometimes underlines it in blue. Beyond that, I don't know what you are asking.

 

[rjordan]

Not sure how it'd pick it up even as a grammar challenge - is there any situation where "waist" is grammatically valid but "waste" as noun wouldn't be?

No I don't think so. I think the grammar checker would just recognize a noun being used as a noun and that would be OK with the logic. It doesn't understand the context of the words themselves just the part of speech.

No idea if it would see an error the other way around, i.e. using waist where you meant waste as a verb.

I never found the grammar checker to be very useful. If you just don't have a grammatical clue, it might bail you out, but then you wouldn't recognize the stupid things it wants you to do. I gave up on it shortly after it came out maybe 15-20 years ago.

rj

 

[Bramblethorn]

If a word just doesn't fit the context, Word (unless you have that element turned off) sometimes underlines it in blue. Beyond that, I don't know what you are asking.

AFAICT - and I may be wrong on this - the grammar-checker works by testing whether the structure fits patterns established by rules of grammar.

For instance, "$article $noun $transitive-verbed $article $noun" is a valid English sentence (e.g. "the dog chased the cat") but "$noun $article $noun" is not, so "hairdresser the football" is likely to get flagged.

Beyond that, checking whether $word is a sensible word in context is a much harder problem. "Wardrobe" is a noun, so "the wardrobe chased the cat" is perfectly valid in structure, it just happens to be absurd. AFAICT, Word can't pick up that sort of thing - doing so would be a fairly hard project in applied machine intelligence. Even the basic rules of what constitutes a grammatical sentence are hard enough.

So, since "waist" is only a noun, and "waste" is a noun (as well as a verb) I can't think of any scenario where "waist" would be accepted by the grammar-checker but "waste" wouldn't be.

 

[sr71plt]

I have grammar check turned off. And still there occasionally are blue underlines of words the system is questioning as maybe not being the right choice (and it's not a question of spelling). Maybe my system is just more magical (and irritating) than other folks have.

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't know about grammar check(I'm still finding my way around words ins and outs) but I will get parts of sentences underlined in green.

If I right click I get "incorrect structure" or "fragment, consider revising"

I get it a lot however with slang in dialogue so usually ignore it

I also get "verb confusion"

I suffer from the myself so word pointing it out to me, isn't helping very much.

 

[sr71plt]

I think that would mean your grammar check is activated.

 

[lovecraft68]

I think that would mean your grammar check is activated.

OH? Well, you or someone was saying a "blue line" maybe mine does it in green.

 

[sr71plt]

OH? Well, you or someone was saying a "blue line" maybe mine does it in green.

I have grammar check turned off, and the line is blue. And it's questioning word usage, not grammar. So, obviously, it's my own special machine.

 

[sun_sea_sky]

I have grammar check turned off. And still there occasionally are blue underlines of words the system is questioning as maybe not being the right choice (and it's not a question of spelling). Maybe my system is just more magical (and irritating) than other folks have.

My version of Word does that too.

Oddly enough I can't reproduce it now. It seems to accept nonsense sentences like:

The boy fruit them cat.
We have feed the dog.

According to a search, the blue underline is a possibly misused word where otherwise it is correct. The only example I could trigger was:

No, sire.

That is correct, but you may well have meant "No, sir."

 

[sr71plt]

My version of Word does that too.

Oddly enough I can't reproduce it now. It seems to accept nonsense sentences like:



According to a search, the blue underline is a possibly misused word where otherwise it is correct. The only example I could trigger was:



That is correct, but you may well have meant "No, sir."

Bingo. Thanks.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Odldy eonguh, it was pnuctuaetd croreclty.

Know it wozzant.