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TO BETTER write proper English, people are turning to grammar checkers. Some hope that these tools will help themselves avoids making errors, however, the technology is far from perfect. If Churchill was alive today, would his word processor prevent him ending his sentences in a preposition? The previous paragraph is obviously rife with grammatical errors, including a split infinitive, a comma splice, a disagreement of subject and verb, an incorrect pronoun before a gerund and a misuse of the subjunctive. Yet one of the most popular computer grammar checkers failed to find anything wrong with anything that was actually incorrect. Instead Grammatik expressed concern that the adjective 'alive' was misplaced and suggested changing 'far from perfect' to 'far form perfect'. That was all. Clearly, the program is not very good at doing its job. The grammar checker also turns clear, powerful prose into a turgid, choppy mess. Poor Thomas Jefferson does not stand a chance. He wrote: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. The grammar-checker 'corrected' America's Declaration of Independence to read: During human events, it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve the political bonds that have connected them with another. They take among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to the separation. Many of the changes to the Declaration of Independence were done automatically by the computer; some, like changing from passive to active constructions, had to be done by hand after the program complained. The result is a document that the grammar checker enjoys and the reader abhors. The problem is that computers are unable to parse language; they are able to guess only at the structure of a sentence - and then apply a rigid set of rules, euphony and style notwithstanding. If there are too many words in a sentence, the grammar checker comments that long phrases are hard to understand. If a gender-specific noun is used, the program pounces. (It is made in America, after all.) When the rules get more complex, the computer makes more errors in applying them. For instance, the sentence in the opening paragraph of this article, ('Some hope that grammar checkers will help them avoids ..') has a disagreement of subject and verb - a mistake which the program is supposed to be able to correct. The grammar checker fails in its task because it believes that 'hope' is the subject of the sentence. Unfortunately, grammar checkers have not been improving. The latest version of one product was well received - not because it worked any better, but because it was not as condescending as the previous model. Until computers can make more sense of the vagaries of language, grammar checkers are products up with which we will not put. © 1995 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved |
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