There are lots of things that I hate. Indeed, far too many to go into here so I shall concentrate upon the one thing for which I reserve a reasonable quota of my not inconsiderable ire. I refer, of course, to the Microsoft Word Grammar Checker. It is the clearest evidence (were any needed) that not only is Beelzebub American, he also works for Microsoft.
Now, I’m the first to admit that a piece of software that stands guard over the language is a beguiling idea but each time I see one of those little green vipers squiggling beneath words (or, sometimes, entire tracts), I find I cannot stop my brain from chiming, from chiming “Garbage In; Garbage Out”.
A recent encounter involved the sentence:
"He looked around, expecting to see some sort of reinforced glass ticket booth (no doubt employing some sort of microphone and speaker arrangement via which he would tell the lobotomised twat within that he had no intention of donating a brass-farthing) and a queue snaking away from it."
According to the infernal machine, the term “had no intention of donating” would be better rendered as “did not intend to donate”. If anyone reading this believes this would be an improvement on the original, perhaps they would explain but I contend that the former expresses a far more imperative aversion to donating than does the latter.
Another mysterious command is prompted by this passage:
"Arthur had sat outside the headmaster’s office awaiting his turn and wondering why it was that the great military academy was having to plunder his grammar school for suitable candidates."
Microsoft apparently takes a dislike to the verb “having” and suggests that I “consider revising”. I presume it would prefer “had had” rather than “was having” in order to maintain some form of tense consistency with “had sat”. Why did it not object, therefore, to “awaiting” and “wondering”?
Capricious, the Grammar Checker cannot be accused of not being.
But then it was, I suppose, designed for office workers and so the language it prefers is formal and structured in a way that fiction need not be. Indeed, one of the joys of fiction is the encounters we have with an author’s idiosyncratic usage and long may it remain so.
Finally, a little quiz. Consider the passage below. How many times and where does the Grammar Checker take offence? No cheating!
“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless. Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
Now, I’m the first to admit that a piece of software that stands guard over the language is a beguiling idea but each time I see one of those little green vipers squiggling beneath words (or, sometimes, entire tracts), I find I cannot stop my brain from chiming, from chiming “Garbage In; Garbage Out”.
A recent encounter involved the sentence:
"He looked around, expecting to see some sort of reinforced glass ticket booth (no doubt employing some sort of microphone and speaker arrangement via which he would tell the lobotomised twat within that he had no intention of donating a brass-farthing) and a queue snaking away from it."
According to the infernal machine, the term “had no intention of donating” would be better rendered as “did not intend to donate”. If anyone reading this believes this would be an improvement on the original, perhaps they would explain but I contend that the former expresses a far more imperative aversion to donating than does the latter.
Another mysterious command is prompted by this passage:
"Arthur had sat outside the headmaster’s office awaiting his turn and wondering why it was that the great military academy was having to plunder his grammar school for suitable candidates."
Microsoft apparently takes a dislike to the verb “having” and suggests that I “consider revising”. I presume it would prefer “had had” rather than “was having” in order to maintain some form of tense consistency with “had sat”. Why did it not object, therefore, to “awaiting” and “wondering”?
Capricious, the Grammar Checker cannot be accused of not being.
But then it was, I suppose, designed for office workers and so the language it prefers is formal and structured in a way that fiction need not be. Indeed, one of the joys of fiction is the encounters we have with an author’s idiosyncratic usage and long may it remain so.
Finally, a little quiz. Consider the passage below. How many times and where does the Grammar Checker take offence? No cheating!
“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless. Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
RSS Feed
