Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

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...