Aucbvax.2340
fa.works
utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works
Sat Jul 18 02:41:25 1981
Writing English
>From JWALKER@BBNA Sat Jul 18 02:34:38 1981
I have for several years wanted to write a system with the goals
you described in your note to Bug-EMACS and WorkS. (No funding
has materialized though.)
Some work has been done on the problem by people at Bell Labs.
See the paper by Lorinda Cherry in the June issue of SIGPLAN
Notices. Still the real problems are those that you pointed
out. How can a computer know your reasons for word choice?
What is it possible to do without trying to implement a system
that "understands" free text? (Good writing is more a matter
of taste than of strict rules. Of course, if mediocre writers
follow a set of strict rules, they are more likely to produce
good writing than if they ignore the rules. But that's part
of a different argument.)
I have a few EMACS functions that were designed to help in
finding and correcting common problems -- changing "which"
to "that" (if you care) and "may" to "might" or "can" (may
is ambiguous). I'd like to hear from other individuals who
have written functions to help with the job of writing as I
am working on a technical writing environment.
Jan
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