Article View: comp.sys.mac
Article #10729Re: $99 PROGRAM FREE
From: Elliott S. Frank
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 1990 19:04
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 1990 19:04
48 lines
2542 bytes
2542 bytes
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.]
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!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