From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/53398 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Simon Josefsson Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: [patch] (gnus)Splitting in IMAP Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 19:54:03 +0200 Sender: ding-owner@lists.math.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <4nel0xw0rm.fsf@lockgroove.bwh.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1057946657 25587 80.91.224.249 (11 Jul 2003 18:04:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 18:04:17 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M1942@lists.math.uh.edu Fri Jul 11 20:04:15 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 19b2Fj-0006dv-00 for ; Fri, 11 Jul 2003 20:04:15 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by malifon.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 19b2G5-0004WY-00; Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:04:37 -0500 Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com ([64.157.176.121]) by malifon.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 19b2Fx-0004WS-00 for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Fri, 11 Jul 2003 13:04:29 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 70457 invoked by alias); 11 Jul 2003 18:04:29 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 70452 invoked from network); 11 Jul 2003 18:04:29 -0000 Original-Received: from 178.230.13.217.in-addr.dgcsystems.net (HELO yxa.extundo.com) (217.13.230.178) by sclp3.sclp.com with SMTP; 11 Jul 2003 18:04:29 -0000 Original-Received: from latte.josefsson.org (yxa.extundo.com [217.13.230.178]) (authenticated bits=0) by yxa.extundo.com (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id h6BI44kU031075 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=OK); Fri, 11 Jul 2003 20:04:04 +0200 Original-To: Matthias Andree Mail-Copies-To: nobody X-Payment: hashcash 1.2 0:030711:ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de:1c01e5035d09bf77 X-Hashcash: 0:030711:ma@dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de:1c01e5035d09bf77 X-Payment: hashcash 1.2 0:030711:ding@gnus.org:1ef38ff71af05bc0 X-Hashcash: 0:030711:ding@gnus.org:1ef38ff71af05bc0 In-Reply-To: <4nel0xw0rm.fsf@lockgroove.bwh.harvard.edu> (Ted Zlatanov's message of "Fri, 11 Jul 2003 11:17:49 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.1003 (Gnus v5.10.3) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) Precedence: bulk Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:53398 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:53398 Ted Zlatanov 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...