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From: dlarson@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dale Larson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: Proper Grammar?
Keywords: grammar, any good?
Message-ID: <21154@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 2 May 91 13:00:54 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.150435.24560@uncecs.edu> <1596@tronsbox.xei.com>
Reply-To: dlarson@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dale Larson)
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Networking Group, Siberia Office
Lines: 53

In article <1596@tronsbox.xei.com> dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com (Dennis Heffernan) writes:
>In article <1991Apr30.150435.24560@uncecs.edu> ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) writes:
>|

(I've taken the liberty of re-introducing some of the material from Robin's
posting of the advertisment, though a little out-of-order)

>wordpro format used on the Amiga, but according to the manual will puke mightily
>on WordPerfect (there's a list of about a billion formatting instructions that
    ^^^^^^^^^^^
>will get lost in the process).

>|    o can be used with
>|        - Word Perfect (TM), ProWrite (TM), Pen Pal (TM), TextCraft Plus (TM),
>|          ^^^^^^^^^^^^

Softwood looks to be claiming WordPerfect as first on it's list of
compatibility in it's advertising but disclaiming a loss of WP formatting
information in the manual.  But since I haven't seen the ad or the manual...

>|    o utilizes the Houghton Mifflin CorrecText Grammar Correction system
>|       - expert system that uses context-sensitive rules of grammar to
>|          analyze writing
>|        - identifys grammatical function and relationships among words
>|    o interactive grammar correction
>|        o checks for grammatical errors, spelling, punctuation and style
>|        o lets you make changes as errors are detected

I'd appreciate someone with Perfect Grammar telling me just what this means in
real terms.  What grammatical errors can this "expert system" detect and
how accurately?  What will go unnoticed some (or most or all) of the time?
Can it unfailingly find incorrect homynyms (i.e. two vs. to vs. too), for
example?  How often can it correctly tell me that I've used a period when I
should have used a question mark.  I might be asking too much of today's
state-of-the-art in expert systems, but how could I ask too much of something
called "Perfect Grammar?"

>|    o supports ARexx and clipboard

Would be cool to have a TurboText macro that could copy just comment lines
to the clipboard and have them grammar checked...

>
>vouch for the quality.  When I get it, I'll review it on .reviews, if there's
>demand.  For now, I'd say that if it does what the manual says it does, it

Please do, or, at the very least, email me.


-- 
          Dale Larson, Software Engineer, Amiga Network Development
                           dlarson@cbmvax.commodore.com
"A distributed system is one that stops you from getting any work done when a
             machine you've never even heard of crashes" -Lamport