{"id":1544,"date":"2021-10-22T02:18:49","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T10:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=1544"},"modified":"2021-10-21T12:27:56","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T20:27:56","slug":"algorithmic-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2021\/10\/22\/algorithmic-grammar\/","title":{"rendered":"Algorithmic Grammar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Docs and I do not have the same understanding of grammar. I know nothing about the skills of whoever programmed the Docs algorithm, but since I learned grammar from my mother, who was a great copy editor, I have a great deal more faith in my opinion than I do in theirs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is an example of a sentence where Docs wants me to change the words \u201cis more\u201d:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why do we believe
\nthe solution to violence
\nis more violence?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe the reason is simply that I\u2019m using the haiku form to write that sentence, because the blue line under \u201cis more\u201d disappears when I write it without line breaks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I should note that the blue lines appear whenever Google Docs finds something \u201cwrong\u201d even though I have \u201csuggest changes\u201d turned off. Apparently you can\u2019t really turn off \u201csuggest changes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another line from one of my daily senryu:<\/span><\/p>\n

Build your healthy life.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Docs doesn\u2019t like my use of \u201cyour.\u201d Since that is a perfectly good imperative sentence, I do not understand it. This one isn\u2019t related to the formatting; Docs marks something wrong either way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Docs also doesn\u2019t like my use of \u201cdoesn\u2019t\u201d as a verb in the first sentence of that last paragraph, since Docs looks like a plural even though I am using it as the name of a program, which makes it singular. Docs is also inconsistent in its application of this rule, because it has no objection to the \u201cis\u201d in this sentence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had thought that capitalization of Docs alerted the algorithm to the fact that I was using it as a proper name (for the very program I\u2019m writing about). When it objected to \u201cdoesn\u2019t,\u201d I thought the problem was that it was the first word in a sentence and the algorithm couldn\u2019t tell whether I meant docs in general or Google Docs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the lack of objection to \u201cis\u201d destroys that theory. Now I don\u2019t know what the hell it\u2019s doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another line where it made a correction.:<\/span><\/p>\n

Pick the one that makes you happy.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Docs objects to \u201cthat.\u201d It would allow \u201cwhich.\u201d I don\u2019t care about the difference between that and which, but I once had an editor who would have screamed at me for using \u201cwhich\u201d in that sentence. (Her basic rule, as near as I can remember, was to only use \u201cwhich\u201d if you could put a comma in front of it. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the actual rule, but if I did that she didn\u2019t scream at me. She was a decent editor, but a terrible person.)<\/span><\/p>\n

(Docs also objected to \u201cDocs objects\u201d in the above paragraph. Shrug.)<\/span><\/p>\n

And a last example:<\/span><\/p>\n

I wake up disturbed.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I admit to being completely flummoxed by this one. I tried changing wake up to \u201cawake,\u201d but Docs didn\u2019t like that either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m beginning to think \u201csuggest changes\u201d is\u00a0 just a random underlining program intended to screw with English majors. That\u2019s probably why you can\u2019t turn it off.<\/span><\/p>\n

I really hope that no one is using the grammar algorithms of Google Docs or, for that matter, Microsoft Word, to learn English grammar. It\u2019s not just that they will learn to write stilted sentences \u2014 I had English teachers in school who tried to teach me to write using similar prescriptive rules, fortunately without a lot of success.<\/span><\/p>\n

But many of the so-called errors they mark aren\u2019t. That means people who don\u2019t know much about English grammar will assume something that is perfectly acceptable is wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

English is a notoriously flexible language. Once you develop a good grasp of the basics of grammar, you can do a lot of things around the edges. Some of those bend or even break the rules, but many are legit, just unusual.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like any corrections while I\u2019m writing, so I always try to turn those things off. I do run spell check, because I know I have some spelling blind spots and I also make typos.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t want to know what some algorithm thinks is good grammar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google Docs and I do not have the same understanding of grammar. I know nothing about the skills of whoever programmed the Docs algorithm, but since I learned grammar from my mother, who was a great copy editor, I have a great deal more faith in my opinion than I do in theirs.\u00a0 Here is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[361,362],"class_list":["post-1544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","category-writing","tag-google-docs","tag-grammar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1547,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1544\/revisions\/1547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}