Oy, grammar-checkers!

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2 total messages Started by Mark Israel Fri, 16 Jan 1998 00:00

#4331

Author: Mark Israel
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 00:00

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   I was correcting the English in a report written by my roommate
(who is Swiss-German and is here doing postgraduate work in
educational psychology).  She had written:  "Mike prevented William
from working by putting his hand over William's keyboard.  Mike found
this very sparingly and did it again and again."

   I asked her, "What do you mean by 'sparingly'?"

   She replied that she had originally written "funny", but when she
ran the report through the grammar-checker on her computer, it told
her that "funny" was trite and suggested "sparingly" as a substitute.

   Baffled, I crossed out "sparingly" and wrote "amusing".

   The next morning, it hit me: the grammar-checker must have said
something like "The word 'funny' is trite.  Use sparingly."

--
misrael@scripps.edu			Mark Israel

Re: Oy, grammar-checkers!

#4332

Author: Geoff Butler
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 00:00

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Mark Israel <misrael@scripps.edu> writes:
>   I was correcting the English in a report written by my roommate
>(who is Swiss-German and is here doing postgraduate work in
>educational psychology).  She had written:  "Mike prevented William
>from working by putting his hand over William's keyboard.  Mike found
>this very sparingly and did it again and again."
>
>   I asked her, "What do you mean by 'sparingly'?"
>
>   She replied that she had originally written "funny", but when she
>ran the report through the grammar-checker on her computer, it told
>her that "funny" was trite and suggested "sparingly" as a substitute.
>
>   Baffled, I crossed out "sparingly" and wrote "amusing".
>
>   The next morning, it hit me: the grammar-checker must have said
>something like "The word 'funny' is trite.  Use sparingly."

It's the mark of a good joke that you don't see the punch line coming.

-ler

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