Tag Archives: grammar check
Jan 18th , 2011
Grammar Check: American versus British English
When performing an online grammar check, it is important to note if the language you are using is American or British English. Believe it or not, there is a subtle but significant difference between them.
According to Wikipedia, “Received Pronunciation (RP), also called the Queen’s (or King’s) English, Oxford English, or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms.”
Wikipedia defines American English as “a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States,” and notes that around two-thirds of the people in the world that speak English as native language live in the United States – making the American dialect the more common of the two.
As a former British colony, the United States inherited English in the same way that Latin America inherited Spanish and Portuguese. However, over the years, American and British English have diverged in accent, spelling and vocabulary. A student of one will likely understand the other without too much additional effort, but should be aware of the differences that exist in literature, slang, pronunciation, letter writing and so on.
In the United States, students are generally taught American English, with little or no reference to the English spoken in the United Kingdom. Students of English as a Second Language (ESL), as well as native-speaking high school students in English class, may have only minimal knowledge of the differences between the two dialects.
English students in the US are taught the language using a variety of tools, including listening exercises, speaking and interviewing techniques and English games. One such game is called a “spelling bee.” Also used to teach grade school children how to spell, spelling bees are contests in which participants compete over who can spell the greatest number of words correctly. As the English language is full of exceptions, and spelling is often not done phonetically, learning how to spell correctly is a key part of growing comfortable with the language for non-native speakers.
Even for native speakers, the differences between American and British English can be a source of amusement. Anyone who has ever witnessed a social encounter between Americans and Brits has probably seen first hand how humorous it can be for them to compare words, especially slang words, and phrases across the cultural divide. However, English students can take comfort in the fact that the differences between the two are not really that great.
Posted in Grammar | Tagged grammar check, online grammar check
Jan 9th , 2011
Grammar Check
A simple grammar check, done with a regular grammar checker that does not have context awareness, can produce confusing results. Let’s take a look at a regular grammar check and then compare it with a context-aware grammar check.
If you type, in a regular grammar checker, the following sentence: “My English Vocabulary is much bitter now!” it will think everything is great with it. All the words are spelled correctly and there are no grammar mistakes so you will get no correction offers. The only problem is, you just wrote an extremely silly sentence in English and your Grammar checker thinks nothing is wrong with it. Your English will become bitter indeed.
The context-aware correction software will recognize your mistake right away because it relies, not only on a list of grammatical rules that are automatically applied, but on a vast database of English language sentences. This allows the context-smart Grammar check to recognize mistakes that are not directly related with misspelled words or grammar errors. The correction offered will be, of course: “My English Vocabulary is much better now!” Better indeed.
Let’s look at another sentence: “I developed a unique system of English liaison plans that improve Vocabulary and Grammar!”
Your regular, naughty, Grammar check will see nothing wrong with this sentence. Now think of the embarrassment of presenting such a sentence in a conference or a business meeting. Even very experienced writers can occasionally make silly mistakes like that, especially if they rely on a spell check to correct errors and do not proofread.
As you can see, you can get countless amusing results. The fact of the matter is, creating a coherent sentence in English, or in any other language for that matter, is all about context, and a spell checker that is not context aware will give you many results that are simply silly.
Our context-aware Grammar check will correct the above sentence and transform it into a logical and “moral” one: “I developed a unique system of English lesson plans that improve Vocabulary and Grammar!” Much better!
So if you don’t want to make "liaison" plans and speak "bitter" English please choose your automatic correction tool carefully. If it does not analyze a complete sentence in order to take a look at contextual connections it will probably appreciate silly sentences like the ones above and think nothing is wrong with them.
Posted in Grammar | Tagged english grammar checker, grammar check, grammar checker
Jan 9th , 2011
Grammar Checker
A simple grammar check, done with a regular grammar checker that does not have context awareness, can produce confusing results. Let’s take a look at a regular grammar check and then compare it with a context-aware grammar check.
If you type, in a regular grammar checker, the following sentence: “My English Vocabulary is much bitter now!” it will think everything is great with it. All the words are spelled correctly and there are no grammar mistakes so you will get no correction offers. The only problem is, you just wrote an extremely silly sentence in English and your Grammar checker thinks nothing is wrong with it. Your English will become bitter indeed.
The context-aware correction software will recognize your mistake right away because it relies, not only on a list of grammatical rules that are automatically applied, but on a vast database of English language sentences. This allows the context-smart Grammar check to recognize mistakes that are not directly related with misspelled words or grammar errors. The correction offered will be, of course: “My English Vocabulary is much better now!” Better indeed.
Let’s look at another sentence: “I developed a unique system of English liaison plans that improve Vocabulary and Grammar!”
Your regular, naughty, Grammar check will see nothing wrong with this sentence. Now think of the embarrassment of presenting such a sentence in a conference or a business meeting. Even very experienced writers can occasionally make silly mistakes like that, especially if they rely on a spell check to correct errors and do not proofread.
As you can see, you can get countless amusing results. The fact of the matter is, creating a coherent sentence in English, or in any other language for that matter, is all about context, and a spell checker that is not context aware will give you many results that are simply silly.
Our context-aware Grammar check will correct the above sentence and transform it into a logical and “moral” one: “I developed a unique system of English lesson plans that improve Vocabulary and Grammar!” Much better!
So if you don’t want to make liaison plans and speak bitter English please choose your automatic correction tool carefully. If it does not analyze a complete sentence in order to take a look at contextual connections it will probably appreciate silly sentences like the ones above and think nothing is wrong with them.
Posted in Grammar | Tagged grammar check, grammar checker