I’ve told some of you this before, but ran across this article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer this weekend, and thought I ought to make it official: don’t trust Microsoft Word’s grammar checker any further than you can spit a semi-literate rat.
The article explains how Sandeep Krishnamurthy, an associate professor at the University of Washington, is taking Microsoft to task for offering a tool that doesn’t do much good. He’s posted several documents on his website that demonstrate the tool’s shortcomings. (Yeah, I had to try it, too, just like everybody else—the title of this post passes muster, according to Word’s grammar check.)
Don’t get me (or Mr. Krishnamurthy) wrong—the grammar of any language is insanely complex; making software that tries to keep accurate tabs on whether someone’s writing correctly or not is a nightmare. Mr. Krishnamurthy’s point, I believe, is that maybe we ought to admit that we don’t quite have the chops to make such software yet, rather than provide the illusion that such checking is actually possible. Like Krishnamurthy says:
If you’re a grad student turning in your term paper, and you think grammar check has completely checked your paper, I have news for you—it really hasn’t.
Be careful out there, boys and girls—your computer is only a tool; you still have to know what you’re doing to squeeze anything decent out of it. 😉