Is Word's grammar checker much smarter than I thought?

[Sesquipedalian Sam]

I just encountered an odd result from the Word 2007 grammar checker. I
was writing about the DMV tests for various types of driver's
licenses. I meant to write,

The Class C license is for regular passenger cars.

but by mistake I wrote,

The Class A license is for regular passenger cars.

I may not have noticed the typo except that Word flagged the "A" as a
grammar error. That drew my attention to the sentence and I realized
that I had typed the wrong. To my astonishment, when I changed the "A"
to "C", Word stopped complaining.

Curious. Is it possible that Word knows that the license for regular
passenger cars is Class C and not Class A?

I was just about to send Bill some more money for putting out such a
great program, when I decided to ask the grammar checked what it
thought the problem was.

Right-clicking on the offending word and selecting "About this
sentence", I get,

Capitalization

Some words are always capitalized. Other words are capitalized when
they are part of a title, a name, or a place. A minor word such as
"the" is capitalized only when the word begins a sentence or
officially begins a name.

Instead of: The pet store closes on Valentine's day.
Consider: The pet store closes on Valentine's Day.

Instead of: Mary has a map of the Hague.
Consider: Mary has a map of The Hague.

(sigh) I guess I won't send in any more money after all.

 

[Graham Mayor]

Computerised grammar checkers can never be more than a guide to possible
grammatical errors. They require a thorough knowledge of grammar to be of
much use. If you have such knowledge, then the checker becomes largely
superfluous.

--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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[Square Peg]

Computerised grammar checkers can never be more than a guide to possible
grammatical errors.

Never? That's kind of a long time, Skippy.

I'd say they are already better than most people.

They'll never satisfy the pedants because they can't even satisfy each
other.

They require a thorough knowledge of grammar to be of
much use.

Huh?

Who are you saying required to have such knowledge -- the grammar
checker or the user?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I think what Graham is saying is that grammar checkers are mistaken often
enough that you have to be fairly confident of your grammar skills to judge
when to accept the correction the grammar checker is offering and when to
decline it. The checker can be helpful in catching, say, subject-verb
agreement in material that has been edited incompletely (you made the
subject plural and then got distracted before changing the verb), but if
your grammar skills are so poor that you are heavily dependent on the
grammar checker, then you will be led into some poor decisions.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Terry Farrell]

I'm actually quite happy that Word may frequently pop up incorrect grammar
errors as long as it always pops up genuine grammar errors. I believe (hope)
that I know sufficient English grammar to sort out the wheat from the chuff.

Terry Farrell