RE: Plain English rules

2014-12-23 Thread Mike Unwalla
Marcin wrote: This said, they might be useful for technical writing; in such
writing, linguistic variation is indeed to be limited. But Mike Unwalla
would know better.

Heikki's rules are good, but they are not always applicable. 

A style is not a standard. 'Plain English' is not a standard. Thus, to
create a set of 'plain English' rules about which everyone agrees is
difficult.

A better strategy is to create set of rules for a specified style guide.
Refer to 'Enable using multiple rule sets' on
http://wiki.languagetool.org/missing-features. Although we can put a set of
rules in an external file
(http://wiki.languagetool.org/tips-and-tricks#toc9), we do not have an easy
way to select a set of rules.

Regards,

Mike Unwalla
Contact: www.techscribe.co.uk/techw/contact.htm 


-Original Message-
From: Marcin Milkowski [mailto:list-addr...@wp.pl] 
Sent: 22 December 2014 12:33
To: languagetool-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: Plain English rules

W dniu 2014-12-22 o 11:33, Daniel Naber pisze:
 On 2014-12-20 11:32, Heikki Lehvaslaiho wrote:

 Heikki,

 I've set up a gist with 80 English rules that (mostly) expand
 redundant/wordy rules in LanguageTools 2.7. Testrules script passes
 these, but it would be good for someone to go though them before
 inclusion to the main rules file.

 https://gist.github.com/heikkil/4efc378102037651f755 [1]

 thanks for those rules! Style rules can cause false alarms, or the
 messages could be considered to be false alarms, so I'm not sure whether
 we should activate these rules by default. What do others think?

I think these rules are following extreme prescriptivism.

I am strongly against the inclusion of such rules as turned on by 
default, because they raise false alarms for perfect English. My rough 
guide is this: if your rules tell that Jane Austen and Charles Dickens 
are bad writers, then your rules are simply wrong. And Dickens does use 
the words indicated in the rules; see for example 'accompany':

https://books.google.pl/books?id=INkAes9Y5AYCpg=PA538lpg=PA538dq=accompan
y+%22charles+dickens%22source=blots=_lFgWHI48osig=X1vs7tIDaTPM9WSA7sGsXCP
OwRohl=plsa=Xei=zg6YVK6RCMWBU-XEgdAFved=0CE4Q6AEwBg#v=onepageq=accompan
y%20%22charles%20dickens%22f=false

(page 223).

This said, they might be useful for technical writing; in such writing, 
linguistic variation is indeed to be limited. But Mike Unwalla would 
know better.

Best regards,
Marcin


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Re: Plain English rules

2014-12-22 Thread Daniel Naber
On 2014-12-20 11:32, Heikki Lehvaslaiho wrote:

Heikki,

 I've set up a gist with 80 English rules that (mostly) expand
 redundant/wordy rules in LanguageTools 2.7. Testrules script passes
 these, but it would be good for someone to go though them before
 inclusion to the main rules file.
 
 https://gist.github.com/heikkil/4efc378102037651f755 [1]

thanks for those rules! Style rules can cause false alarms, or the 
messages could be considered to be false alarms, so I'm not sure whether 
we should activate these rules by default. What do others think?

Regards
  Daniel


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Re: Plain English rules

2014-12-22 Thread Marcin MiƂkowski
W dniu 2014-12-22 o 11:33, Daniel Naber pisze:
 On 2014-12-20 11:32, Heikki Lehvaslaiho wrote:

 Heikki,

 I've set up a gist with 80 English rules that (mostly) expand
 redundant/wordy rules in LanguageTools 2.7. Testrules script passes
 these, but it would be good for someone to go though them before
 inclusion to the main rules file.

 https://gist.github.com/heikkil/4efc378102037651f755 [1]

 thanks for those rules! Style rules can cause false alarms, or the
 messages could be considered to be false alarms, so I'm not sure whether
 we should activate these rules by default. What do others think?

I think these rules are following extreme prescriptivism.

I am strongly against the inclusion of such rules as turned on by 
default, because they raise false alarms for perfect English. My rough 
guide is this: if your rules tell that Jane Austen and Charles Dickens 
are bad writers, then your rules are simply wrong. And Dickens does use 
the words indicated in the rules; see for example 'accompany':

https://books.google.pl/books?id=INkAes9Y5AYCpg=PA538lpg=PA538dq=accompany+%22charles+dickens%22source=blots=_lFgWHI48osig=X1vs7tIDaTPM9WSA7sGsXCPOwRohl=plsa=Xei=zg6YVK6RCMWBU-XEgdAFved=0CE4Q6AEwBg#v=onepageq=accompany%20%22charles%20dickens%22f=false

(page 223).

This said, they might be useful for technical writing; in such writing, 
linguistic variation is indeed to be limited. But Mike Unwalla would 
know better.

Best regards,
Marcin

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from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards
with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration  more
Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
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