 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussion GroupsEnglish UsageBritish EnglishESL Teaching Learnglish.com Contact UsLink To UsSearch & Site Map |
Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004MS Word's grammar checker
Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. MS Word's sugggestion: The end of 2003 should complete the deal. What? :-) Not being a native speaker, but I still dare to think something ain't right here.... qt > Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Not being a native speaker, but I still dare to think something ain't > right here.... We can see programmers sought to buillt into the MS Word tool a preference for verbs in the active rather than the passive voice. But this is a much more subtle point of usage than (for example) outright errors of grammar, so we should not be surprised that the tool sometimes recommends the poorer option of whatever two or more are available. -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) >> Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >that the tool sometimes recommends the poorer >option of whatever two or more are available. In this case it is not simply a poorer option but an incorrect one. What the MS Word grammar checker seems to have done is analyze the sentence as: "The deal should be completed by XYZ" where XYZ is the agent of completion of the deal, rather than being the time when the deal will be complete. For example if we substitute the name of the original poster, QT, for XYZ we see that: "The deal should be completed by QT" can be rearranged as: "QT should complete the deal". This does not work when XYZ is a time.  SignaturePeter Duncanson UK (posting from a.e.u) On 16 Jan 2004, Peter Duncanson wrote >>> Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. >>> MS Word's sugggestion: The end of 2003 should complete the deal. -snip- > What the MS Word grammar checker seems to have done is analyze the > sentence as: > "The deal should be completed by XYZ" where XYZ is the agent of > completion of the deal, rather than being the time when the deal > will be complete. -snip- > This does not work when XYZ is a time. The MS grammar checker has always struck me as a pretty useless piece of programming -- it was one of the first things I disabled in Word. This example is yet another reason to consign it to the dustbin. (Besides: when I use the passive voice, I *intend* to use the passive voice. What voice some MS program thinks I should use isn't, shall we say, very high on my list of concerns.) SignatureCheers, Harvey Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years; Southern England for the past 21 years. (for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs) >On 16 Jan 2004, Peter Duncanson wrote > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] >voice. What voice some MS program thinks I should use isn't, shall we >say, very high on my list of concerns.) Quite. I rarely accept the suggestions from the MS grammar checker. I have 'unchecked' the passive sentence option, in fact, on viewing the list, I see that none of the Style options is checked. SignaturePeter Duncanson UK (posting from a.e.u) > The MS grammar checker has always struck me as a pretty useless piece > of programming -- it was one of the first things I disabled in Word. If you do not need a grammar/style checker, this tool can be a way to save time. It can find very quickly the few places you actually do want to fix--faster (maybe) than I can find them by reading through. But if you NEED editorial help, then you need an editor. Following MS Word's advice without understanding it will only make matters worse. SignatureGroleau Family (admin acc't) http://groleau.freeshell.org/ > MS Word's sugggestion: The end of 2003 should complete the deal. <laugh> > Not being a native speaker, but I still dare to think something ain't > right here.... Correct. The grammar checker is making its usual irritating objection to the the passive, but misunderstanding the sentence it's trying to correct. If you wrote "the wall will be built by Fred" it would suggest "Fred will build the wall", which is a correct but often unwanted change. As your sentence fits the same pattern Word assumes that "by the end of 2003" says who will complete the deal in the same way that "by Fred" says who will build the wall, and so it makes the same change. Moral: Don't trust grammar checkers. Cheers, Daniel > Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > qt if you have "The shirt should be worn by the little dog.", Word suggests "The little dog should wear the shirt.", which makes more sense. If you change "by" in your original sentence to "near" or "at", word doesn't suggest any change, or if you use "be complete by" rather than "be completed by" it will work around the silly suggestions. > Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Not being a native speaker, but I still dare to think something ain't > right here.... That's OK. Ms. Word isn't a native speaker either. SignatureGroleau Family (admin acc't) http://groleau.freeshell.org/ In alt.english.usage on Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:47:55 -0500 "Groleau (admin acc't)" <groleau+admin@freeshell.org> posted: >> Original text: The deal should be completed by the end of 2003. > > >> MS Word's sugggestion: The end of 2003 should complete the deal. >> >> What? :-) Word is opposed to any verb in the passive voice. Apparently it suggests rewriting it no matter how stupid the alternative. You might want to say, "The organizers** should complete the deal by the end of 2003." **I don't know what word should be the subject. If the writer can't think of one, that's another reason to use the passive voice. >> Not being a native speaker, but I still dare to think something ain't >> right here.... > >That's OK. Ms. Word isn't a native speaker either. s/ meirman If you are emailing me please say if you are posting the same response. Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years Indianapolis, 7 years Chicago, 6 years Brooklyn NY 12 years Baltimore 20 years |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.