Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdahl!esf00
From: esf00@uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: $99 PROGRAM FREE
Keywords: Grammatik errors
Message-ID: <10eu02cf943L01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 20 Mar 90 19:04:37 GMT
References: <1161@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> <39043@apple.Apple.COM> <17271@cs.yale.edu>
Reply-To: esf00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank)
Organization: The Beige Building Under the Flight Path
Lines: 48
Followup-To:

In article <17271@cs.yale.edu> naiman-jeffrey@CS.YALE.EDU (Jeffrey Naiman) writes:
>Is anyone going to post the solution and how to get the free copy?
>
Yow! Boola-boola!!

I've gone through the ad twice, looking for errors.  I sent off my
list of thirty-one errors a week ago, and I'm waiting for my free copy.
I went over the ad again with a neighbor (after spending a few minutes
finding errors in some text that she was laying out in PageMaker)
and found three errors that I didn't find the first time.

It's all stuff that you would get dinged for in any reasonable writing
class:

	o       spelling errors
	o       use of sentence fragments
	o       unbalanced parentheses
	o       conclusions with no antecedent
	o       sentences joined by a comma
	o       trite usages (billions and billions)
	o       sentences started with conjunctions
	o       misconstructed compound nouns
	o       multiple punctuation marks
	o       exhortations to credulity

... and more!!!!

If you got (or are in the process of getting) an "A" in Freshman
Composition (is that still a college requirement, or am I showing
my white hairs?), it's a twenty minute lark.  If you need help,
rush down to the bookstore, buy a copy of _The Elements of Style_, by
Strunk and White (<<100 pages, lots of white space, takes about an
hour to read) and use that as a reference to parse the text.

Judging from the reviews, expecting this tool to fix your writing
is like expecting the syntax corrections you get from a Pascal
compiler to give you an "A" in Data Structures.

obligatory disclaimer:
CS didn't exist the year I placed out of Freshman Composition.

-- 
Elliott Frank      ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00     (408) 746-6384
               or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00

[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]