On 3 February 2011 21:13, webmaster for Kracked Press Productions <[email protected]> wrote:
> There is a need for someone to work on a good content/context > checker for spelling and grammar. Add a mini-dictionary function > to a spell checker would help with people, like me, who may not > know what the correct spelling is, even though you are given a list. > Sounding out words does not work well for me since a "normal" > spell checker will not handle that. <snip> > So I do hope some programmer with the knack of programming > and some good English skills, would take up the call for a free > proofing system. Even a low costing one would be great. There > is a need that is needed to be filled and there will be a lot of > students and adults that would be very pleased. I know I would > and the students in the School district I taught in would be pleased > as well. Hi Tim, I don't know of a decent grammar checker for English. I suspect part of the problem is the language itself: few so-called rules that are really rules, enormous inconsistencies in the language, etc. If given the option, I won't even *install* a grammar checker and if it is built-in, I disable it as I find they are far more trouble than they are worth. (Though I sometimes have turned it on just for laughs.) I have a good friend who is an English professor who urges his students to turn off spell checkers because he finds people who rely on them turn in papers with improperly used words. (They misspell a word and accept the first suggestion the spell checker offers -- whether it is the correct word, which it frequently is not.) I sympathise with his attitude, but I also sympathise with people like my sister who suffer from dyslexia. In the vast majority of cases, poor spelling is simply laziness and/or a lack of literacy. For dyslexics, it is problem that *looks* like laziness and/or a lack of literacy to those who don't understand. But in a language with homophones, homographs, heteronyms, and heterographs, I can't even begin to imagine how one could code for all the possibilities (says he who has much better spelling and grammar skills than programming skills). Consider: Can you count to two, too? Or consider Dylan Thomas's (in)famous _Under Milk Wood_ which refers to the 'shops in mourning' -- an unusual combining of words which most listeners would interpret as 'shops in [the] morning'. How could any program get such a phrase correct? English really is a wacky language. -- T. R. Valentine Your friends will argue with you. Your enemies don't care. 'When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.' -- Erasmus -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/users/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***
