Your host can't believe he's about to write this. Especially since it was covered quite well by the excellent Polyglot Conspiracy some 6 weeks ago. But here go:
Arts & Letters Daily Link to Chronicle Of Ivory Tower Fools Story Making Big Fun Of Microsoft Grammar Checker Program. Story Say Grammar Checker Write like SC on Crack.
Brain-dead Heap Smart Professor University of Washington Show Clever Examples of Grammar Checker Fail. Wise-ass Chronicle Editor Bite Hook, Sinker and Eat Much Line as Well. Pens Jackass Ungrammatical Headline and Think Super Funny That Grammar Checker Not Catch Mistake. Not Consider That Bogus Capitalization Source of Error; Maybe Program Not So Stupid After All.
Try SC Experiment At Home. Paste Block Quote into Word:
Microsoft Word Grammar Checker Are No Good, Scholar Conclude. Microsoft Word grammar checker are no good, scholar conclude.
See How Not Using Headline Capitalization Style Make Grammar Checker Smarter. Not true in all case, but make editor look real dumb print comment that headline fool grammar checker.
Every sentence in this post except for the normally capitalized one passed the grammar checker in your host’s copy of Word 2003. In fact, Word also caught grammar errors in the case of every non-capitalized word appearing in the earlier parts of this post -- they only pass the grammar checker after being corrected to “normal” capitalization. Admittedly, this suggests some rather simple rules are in play – not capitalizing prepositions, for example – but it also suggests some rational decision-making on the part of the Microsoft crowd, like treating sequences of capitalized words as proper nouns that they shouldn’t try too hard to parse with limited resources.
(Edited on 4/13/05 at 10:19 a.m. to properly credit the original scoop on this story in the linguistics blogging community.)
Wait, so the capitalization threw it off; without the capitalization it was fine? (Methinks no mechanical grammar checker, btw, would be able to parse that kind of ambiguity; at least, I wouldn't expect it to.)
Wait, he's still getting press out of this?
Posted by: polyglot conspiracy | April 13, 2005 at 07:25 AM
Oh man, I feel bad about this. I thought I had seen an article about it before. But I couldn't remember where. Thanks for the reminder; I'll edit the post to mention that.
I'm not 100% sure what the actual rule is that makes Word so cautious about flagging sequences of capitalized words. But it definitely does have an effect (in fairness, some of the all-capitalized sentences above sneak through in fully normal capitalization, but get caught with intermediate amounts of capitalization). You're absolutely right, though, that it's too much to expect a mechanical program to account for all of the possible intentions behind the user's behavior.
Posted by: Semantic Compositions | April 13, 2005 at 10:17 AM
"User's behavior"! Unless you are worried about having a spelling/grammar checker for text generated by a machine or process, then I think you are talking about a person's behavior.
I set my grammar check to flag the word "user" because I hate developers who - out of pure meanness - like to call a person a dumb "user."
Posted by: spill chick | April 14, 2005 at 09:58 AM
Hmmm..."user" is still the term used by many social scientists and researchers to talk about people who are using software applications or internet services, for instance. It doesn't really imply that they're not people (though it does, at times, make them sound like drug addicts). Would a machine count as a "user"? It seems like using something implies some kind of intentionality or agency, not just performing a process because you're programmed to.
Posted by: polyglot conspiracy | April 14, 2005 at 11:58 AM
If I really wanted to imply stupidity by calling someone a user instead of something else (I'm not sure quite how else I would have written that line otherwise: "intentions behind the person using the software's behavior"?), I might reach for the favored term of The Register's BOFH, and say luser instead. But I only meant to call them
drug addictsthe people making use of the word processor.Posted by: Semantic Compositions | April 14, 2005 at 01:18 PM
Stumbled across your site today. It's quite fun. An old post pointed to a joke about scrod that made me laugh out loud. I've got a site you may enjoy, though it's nowhere near the depth and breadth of yours. The first posts were quite long, then I got busy (or ran out of material, perhaps):
http://subjunctivitis.blogspot.com
Posted by: chad | April 15, 2005 at 04:06 AM
Capitalizing starting letters if often the typist's discretion, hence capital letters are automatically deemed as right.
Posted by: grammar check | July 27, 2009 at 01:25 PM
Very pleased to see a blog post, including the thoughtful and perceptive comments on set. To keep the great work!
Not everyone can provide the appropriate flow of information, thanks.
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