[patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Matthias Andree]

Hi,

I don't know the canonical way to send this, so here is some fodder for
the Gnus CVS committers, fixing grammar's off "Splitting in IMAP"
Section with gnus.texi. >:-) I presume these have been accidentally
omitted when reformulating. I didn't read the whole section, just fixed
the obvious ones. I wonder if Sieve (not mentioned) qualifies as
non-standard though ;-)

Index: texi/gnus.texi
===================================================================
RCS file: /usr/local/cvsroot/gnus/texi/gnus.texi,v
retrieving revision 6.534
diff -u -r6.534 gnus.texi
--- texi/gnus.texi	24 Jun 2003 08:12:31 -0000	6.534
+++ texi/gnus.texi	11 Jul 2003 10:12:46 -0000
@@ -16072,11 +16072,11 @@
 @subsection Splitting in IMAP
 @cindex splitting imap mail
 
-Splitting is something Gnus users has loved and used for years, and now
+Splitting is something Gnus users have loved and used for years, and now
 the rest of the world is catching up.  Yeah, dream on, not many
-@acronym{IMAP} server has server side splitting and those that have splitting
-seem to use some non-standard protocol.  This means that @acronym{IMAP}
-support for Gnus has to do its own splitting.
+@acronym{IMAP} servers have server side splitting and those that have
+splitting seem to use some non-standard protocol.  This means that
+@acronym{IMAP} support for Gnus has to do its own splitting.
 
 And it does.
 


-- 
Matthias Andree

Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Simon Josefsson]

Matthias Andree <ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I don't know the canonical way to send this, so here is some fodder for
> the Gnus CVS committers, fixing grammar's off "Splitting in IMAP"
> Section with gnus.texi. >:-) I presume these have been accidentally
> omitted when reformulating.

Nah, my grammar is simply poor.  If I understood the English plural
forms, I would write a elisp grammar checker, but if I understood the
English plural forms, I wouldn't need a grammar checker. :-)

Hm.  Are there any free, general-purpose, grammar checkers?  I recall
looking for one a few years ago but ended up with nothing really
useful.  Having a flygrammar-mode in Emacs would be cool.

> I didn't read the whole section, just fixed the obvious ones. I
> wonder if Sieve (not mentioned) qualifies as non-standard though ;-)

It now mentions Sieve too.

Thanks.

Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, jas@extundo.com wrote:
> Nah, my grammar is simply poor.  If I understood the English plural
> forms, I would write a elisp grammar checker, but if I understood
> the English plural forms, I wouldn't need a grammar checker. :-)
> 
> Hm.  Are there any free, general-purpose, grammar checkers?  I
> recall looking for one a few years ago but ended up with nothing
> really useful.  Having a flygrammar-mode in Emacs would be cool.

I assume you mean *English* grammar checkers, right?  There are some
commercial ones, but every single one I've tried, from the old
Grammatik package to today's Word grammar checker, are not up to the
task.  I'm not aware of any non-commercial ones (ELisp or otherwise),
and Google searches came up empty.

It is possible to write specific checks, for instance one can check
for passive voice or for incorrect pluralization, but language is so
incredibly flexible that those checks will have limited usefulness.
In addition, grammatical correctness does not mean that the text is
understandable at all.

English in particular is a mish-mash of Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and many
other languages.  It's a language made of exceptions.  I doubt a
quality grammar checker can be written with today's tools.  But feel
free to prove me wrong :)

Ted

Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Simon Josefsson]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, jas@extundo.com wrote:
>> Nah, my grammar is simply poor.  If I understood the English plural
>> forms, I would write a elisp grammar checker, but if I understood
>> the English plural forms, I wouldn't need a grammar checker. :-)
>> 
>> Hm.  Are there any free, general-purpose, grammar checkers?  I
>> recall looking for one a few years ago but ended up with nothing
>> really useful.  Having a flygrammar-mode in Emacs would be cool.
>
> I assume you mean *English* grammar checkers, right?  There are some
> commercial ones, but every single one I've tried, from the old
> Grammatik package to today's Word grammar checker, are not up to the
> task.  I'm not aware of any non-commercial ones (ELisp or otherwise),
> and Google searches came up empty.

Alas, that's my experience as well...

> It is possible to write specific checks, for instance one can check
> for passive voice or for incorrect pluralization, but language is so
> incredibly flexible that those checks will have limited usefulness.

If it would work like flyspell, and only highlight things it doesn't
like, it wouldn't be that obtrusive.  Some searching on the topic
yields:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/

Which contain many simple things to keep in mind, some of them could
probably be identified automatically.  I think I'll start on a
flygrammar that highlights a vs an mistakes, which seems simple enough
to start with, although perhaps not that useful.  Later it could be
extended to match other common things those web pages mention, and
even offer text discussing the mistake for the more complicated
issues.

I have a feeling this is getting a bit off topic though...

Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Jesper Harder]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> If it would work like flyspell, and only highlight things it doesn't
> like, it wouldn't be that obtrusive.  Some searching on the topic
> yields:
>
> http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
> http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/
>
> Which contain many simple things to keep in mind, some of them could
> probably be identified automatically.  I think I'll start on a
> flygrammar that highlights a vs an mistakes, which seems simple enough
> to start with, although perhaps not that useful.  Later it could be
> extended to match other common things those web pages mention, and
> even offer text discussing the mistake for the more complicated
> issues.

I think GNU Style & Diction is something like this:

,----[ http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html ]
|
|  Diction and style are two old standard UNIX commands. Diction
|  identifies wordy and commonly misused phrases. Style analyses surface
|  characteristics of a document, including sentence length and other
|  readability measures.
`----

I believe there's an Emacs interface for it somewhere.

Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, jas@extundo.com wrote:
> I think I'll start on a flygrammar that highlights a vs an mistakes,
> which seems simple enough to start with, although perhaps not that
> useful.  Later it could be extended to match other common things
> those web pages mention, and even offer text discussing the mistake
> for the more complicated issues.

Cool, I'll be happy to test-drive it.

> I have a feeling this is getting a bit off topic though...

Both for the Gnus documentation and for message-mode, a flygrammar
with some simple rules would be a great addition IMHO.  You're right
though, it's probably better as a standalone package.

Ted

Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Simon Josefsson]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, jas@extundo.com wrote:
>> I think I'll start on a flygrammar that highlights a vs an mistakes,
>> which seems simple enough to start with, although perhaps not that
>> useful.  Later it could be extended to match other common things
>> those web pages mention, and even offer text discussing the mistake
>> for the more complicated issues.
>
> Cool, I'll be happy to test-drive it.

http://josefsson.org/flygrammar.el

It currently only (attempt to) check if you use the indefinite article
properly.  To test it, enable flygrammar mode (M-x flygrammar-mode
RET) in a buffer and paste in the following:

;; test: an cat a egg a honest an unicorn

Since those are incorrect, they are highlighted and there is a balloon
help that explains the error.

I'm aware of some problems, but all feedback is appreciated.
(Although I guess we should move the discussion to comp.emacs.)  It
doesn't work under XEmacs, for instance.