Comment by terracatta
5 years ago
Totally agree, we already have a generation of folks who don't know how to spell without the crutch of a spell-checker (I include myself as a victim), does Grammarly produce even worse outcomes?
The one caveat here (which I try to cover in this post) is there are definitely people who suffer from things like dyslexia who heavily rely on these types of tools to be able to communicate confidently. In that way, they are very useful.
Even worse: entirely new language primitives based on 10wpm mobile keyboards.
Despite the moral panic over the OG mobile keyboards in the noughties (remember the breathless "kids these days write txt spk, m8 in their English exams" headlines every year?), the pandemic of inability to "write good" never actually materialised among Millenials.
Indeed, it has been suggested that reductions like "wait" to "w8" even represent the same kind of phonological awareness of language that's correlated with better spelling.
The same thing happened in the 19th century when coded abbreviations to save money on telegrams became a fad and infected everyday writing. Newspapers and periodicals both celebrated and decried them. Civilization didn't collapse. TTFN.
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I mean "txt" speak is something only my parents still use. There are some shortenings like omw, ngl, ikr but they're not inventing new words.
I mean hell if this is the straw than the internet ruined that before I was born -- tldr, imho, afaik, mfw, /s.
Heh, now it's just emojis and memes for communication.
does it actually matter that people don't all the grammar rules or how to spell things? an english sentence contains a lot of parity data. when you do know all the rules, it can be painful to see the mistakes people make, but confusing "principle" with "principal" or using "who" when you should have used "whom" doesn't really obscure the meaning of the sentence.
when it comes to formal correspondence, spellcheck is always there to help. or better yet, get a copywriter or technical writer to help you and go back to your main responsibilities.
> does it actually matter that people don't all the grammar rules or how to spell things?
It does if you hold the view that teaching someone to speak and write is teaching them them think.
If that is correct than if someone does not know how to speak and write in a grammatically correct fashion then the implication is that they do not know how to think properly.
Even if there isn't a perfect 1to1 mapping between grammatically correct writing and thinking skills, I still think it's a good proxy for measuring a persons ability to think because in general the more you read, the better you get at writing, and the more you read, the more you know.*
* the traditional caveats apply with garbage in, garbage out.
> It does if you hold the view that teaching someone to speak and write is teaching them *them think*.
> If that is correct *than* if someone does not know how to speak and write in a grammatically correct fashion then the implication is that they do not know how to think properly.
And you immediately defeat yourself with your own argument.
Nobody ever has, nor should strive to, follow every grammatical rule perfectly. Errors only matter if they create actual ambiguity; if you understand my intent, then I have used language effectively.
As human thought evolves, language should too. Poets are always breaking rules in the name of art, and many of those changes get codified as new rules. Shakespeare simply made up dozens of words that we use today without a second thought. Over the last decade, modern poets steeped in the culture of sarcasm have given the word "literally" a new meaning. Those deviations and inventions made sense, both to the speakers and listeners, so new words, rules, and understandings were created. The only people left confused are the prescriptionists who cling to outdated rules that describe how people used to talk.
As long as humans can turn these AI assistants off and share their imperfect creativity, I'm not too concerned.
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> It does if you hold the view that teaching someone to speak and write is teaching them them think.
I don't hold that view. at least, I don't think effective communication requires mastering the formal rules of a natural language. I'm not even sure communication itself is that closely tied to complex thought. I've known a few brilliant engineers whose english was barely sufficient for work. perhaps they were quite elegant in their native tongues; I wouldn't be able to say.
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does it actually matter that people don't all the grammar rules or how to spell things?
Does it matter if someone does not write with perfect grammar and spelling? Probably not.
However at some point you have drifted so far from normal conventions that you are no longer communicating effectively. You can make reasonable arguments about both prescriptivism and descriptivism but if your spelling and grammar are so bad that someone can't understand you then you're not a descriptivist, you're just wrong.
I have encountered this more often than I'd like in professional settings. I work in software development, a field where precision is important, so if I'm looking at your job application and it's full of basic language errors then I absolutely will judge you for that.
Yes, clarity and grammar matter. For example, with your lack of capitalization, I wouldn't know if you were trying to help your Uncle Jack off a horse or your uncle jack off a horse.
Though no one has ever written either of those sentences for any reason other than to put up a strawman to tear down in their defense of grammar.
I'm a fan of learning grammar well, to be clear, and wish mine were better, but this is not a good argument for grammar mattering.
okay, you can also come up with plenty of examples of ambiguous parses that don't require violating any grammar rules. fortunately humans are a bit more intelligent than compilers and can use their knowledge of context to settle on the more reasonable interpretation.
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> does it actually matter that people don't all the grammar rules
No.
*ducks*
ironic, but it actually supports my point so I'll leave it that way :)
I for one blame the Grammar-Nazis and their anti-semantic ways
ok, i'll let myself out.
Good writing is probably like dressing up. It's not just what people think of you, you think of yourself better too.
I know, we should also get rid of Calculators because people should just do all math in there head
Hell let get rid of computers as well, people should just do everything manually, if you need to communicate drive to the person an talk to them, if you need to write something get out the hammer, chisel and rock...
</endsarcasm>
No Computers, Spell Check, nor grammar check has not ruined civilization or made people stop learning things...
we use calculators because you can't do the kind of arithmetic in your head that calculators are made to perform, and because random arithmetic isn't conducive to understanding math. If you can't add two single digit numbers any more I'd start to be concerned.
Having a proper understanding of grammar and spelling is relevant even in verbal communication. Tools should be used to augment human capacity, not used as an excuse to justify atrophy of basic skills.
You can see that's false by the existence of languages with simpler grammar than English whose users are still able to function to as high or a higher level than English speakers. Some of the grammar in English is redundant. We shouldn't waste our brainpower on it any more than on mental arithmetic/etc.
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I use it, but only as a suggestion.