If you’re still depending on your stock-standard word processor’s spelling and grammar checker, you’re no different than those morbidly unhappy old married couples who cling to their relationships for no better reason than a love for the status quo. In other words, you’re settling.
That may sound harsh, but if you haven’t realized that electronic proofreaders, once rudimentary programs that depended on the manual entry of recognized words and rules, have evolved into full-fledged, real-time writing companions, then you need a polite but firm wrist slap.
These days, computational linguists have created tools that understand context, customize themselves based on group behavior, and enhance writing rather than just flag errors. What does all that mean for you, the writer?
We’ll get there. But, first, to give you a big-picture idea of the leaps and bounds we’ve traveled with this kind of technology, a look back into the past:
*CUE FLASHBACK*
A long time ago (say 1961), in Cambridge, Massachusetts (MIT to be exact), a bicycle-riding beach boy from San Diego who had an FBI record for dabbling in cryptology invented the first spelling checker. Here’s inventor Les Earnest explaining the motivation for the device in his own words:
I undertook the development of a cursive handwriting recognizer and found it necessary to create a spelling checker in order to make it work. I found a book that claimed to list the most common English words and punched the top ten thousand onto paper tape for use in experiments.
This proto-proofreader worked by cross-referencing words in a text with the list of words that Earnest had logged. If a word could not be found, it was flagged as incorrect. In 1966, he applied this logic to text editing programs outside of his handwriting recognizer, and in 1970, his graduate student Ralph Gorin wrote a more advanced version that would not only point out spelling errors but also suggest corrections.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the advent and popularity of the personal computer prompted other computer scientists to not only develop competing spelling checker software for specific companies (like IBM), but also to conjure up the first grammar checker. Through complex programming language, computer nerds could check for readability and receive constructive comments about particular words or phrases.
At this point, spelling and grammar checkers were not included in standard word processors. Computer owners would need to consciously decide to purchase and download them. This kind of software was often expensive, incapable of understanding certain file formats, and at the mercy of finite word banks and phrases manually logged by programmers.
Why is this last bit problematic? Two reasons:
- Language is fluid. To give some perspective, every three months, <i>The Oxford English Dictionary</i> adds about two hundred words to its already massive collection. Using a finite word bank as the basis of a spelling checker excludes a huge number of new and popular words in the English language (imagine the annoyance of seeing <i>selfie</i> constantly flagged as a mistake). Plus, word banks often don’t include proper nouns, which aren’t usually found in dictionaries (<i>Apple,</i> anyone?).
- Regular spelling checkers don’t account for context. For instance, the error-filled sentence below would have been deemed correct by older programs. In fact, it is still seen as perfectly peachy by many outdated word processors’ built-in spelling and grammar checkers—try inserting it into yours as an experiment:
He decided to move there protest too a different sight.
He decided to move their protest to a different site.
<i>(Note: Grammarly catches all the above errors in consecutive checks.)</i>
Over time, word processors integrated the formerly stand-alone spelling and grammar checkers into their functionality or created their own versions of the technology. And though improvements were made to the word banks and the manner in which grammar could be checked, it wasn’t until the turn of the millennium that research started to focus on context-sensitive errors.
Since then, advances have come fast and furiously, though word processors’ built-in spelling and grammar checkers have been slow to adopt many of them. Perhaps most notably, these old workhorses are not very useful when checking text written on the web, which makes up more and more of our correspondence.
So, where is the innovation happening?
Modern electronic proofreaders like Grammarly exist as free or paid online entities. They can integrate with word processors and web browsers as add-ons, which allows you to make real-time corrections to emails, social media posts, and seeded comments.
Because they use cloud-based algorithms that are linked to group behavior rather than finite resources and logic, many of these services not only recognize new, trendy words, but also constantly improve their ability to point out errors. Plus, they enhance writing skills by providing explanations behind corrections and even giving suggested fixes. Furthermore, they can help identify plagiarism, guide citation writing, and even change the nature of their recommended corrections and suggestions based on a variety of style settings, such as casual, professional, or creative.
All said and done, they’re still not perfect. They’re not human brains, after all, but they have come a long way since Earnest’s 10,000-word spelling checker.
So, if you’re still clunking along with your word processor’s anachronistic built-in offering, stop, drop, and download. There’s a free service out there (or right here—hint, hint) that can help improve your writing tremendously.
from Grammarly Blog
http://www.grammarly.com/blog/2015/does-your-throwback-spell-check-get-the-job-done-its-time-to-upgrade/
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