The following sentence raises a warning in MS Word:
Both fields value experience.

When I ask for suggestions, it says I'm missing the possessive 
apostrophe in "fields".  At least it's smart enough to recognize that it 
could either be singular or plural possessive.

However, it is NOT smart enough to recognize that, in this case, the 
noun is simply plural and NOT possessive.

I like leaving the grammar check on (it is legitimately useful, though 
it is not the ultimate authority), but things like this still bug me.

I wonder how often people restructure perfectly legitimate writing in 
order to avoid potential warnings with such grammar checks in word 
processing programs?  After all, we've already seen a "Powerpoint 
effect" in presentations, where people structure their data so that is 
most effective when displayed in Powerpoint (I've even read an 
apocryphal story about a college professor who dropped their favorite 
book from their literature class, because the themes were too complex to 
fit nicely onto Powerpoint slides).

Grr.

...Chambers

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Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I like leaving the grammar check on (it is legitimately useful, though
> it is not the ultimate authority), but things like this still bug me.

I've not used it for years. It rarely caught genuine errors beyond half-written
sentences, and instead suggested I modify perfectly good English until it
wasn't.

> I wonder how often people restructure perfectly legitimate writing in
> order to avoid potential warnings with such grammar checks in word
> processing programs?

Ooh, all too often I'm sure.

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> I've not used it for years. It rarely caught genuine errors beyond half-written
> sentences, and instead suggested I modify perfectly good English until it
> wasn't.

Agreed.

(Actually, I haven't turned it off yet. I just routinely ignore it.)

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> I've not used it for years. It rarely caught genuine errors beyond half-written
> sentences, and instead suggested I modify perfectly good English until it
> wasn't.

I usually turn down the warning levels until it's only catching genuine 
errors. It really is a pretty cutting-edge AI field to understand a sentence 
like "fields value experiences" and figure out which is the verb and such.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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I'm not yet a Cylon, so I do it the hard way:  getting info crammed in 
my old-fashioned brain meat and actually using it.  I'm actually proud 
of my language skills, both in my native Portuguese and even in English 
to some degree.  It's a fading art, as it seems the future belongs to a 
mix of l33t and heavy metal barkings speaking nothing.

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You know what annoys me?

People who think that "i.e." and "e.g." are interchangable! >_<

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On 15-12-2009 15:34, Invisible wrote:
> You know what annoys me?
> 
> People who think that "i.e." and "e.g." are interchangable! >_<

well, they are both latin.

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