From: ewen@NAOS.ACTRIX.GEN.NZ (Ewen McNeill)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Jobs in Education (retry)
Date: 14 Apr 92 05:36:45 GMT
Reply-To: FIGI-L%BRUSPVM.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

cmr02@scm.tees-poly.ac.uk (Peter J "Knaggs.") writes:

  [much useful text]
> I know of vary few spell checkers that will pick up the mis-spelling of
            ^^^^
> "hear", when it should be spelt "here".  There is one that I know of, and
> this is simply too expensive.

That, of course, is a perfect example of where spelling checkers fall
over.  Ie, when the word itself is valid, but is wrong in the situation.
I presume you mean "very" (so that "few" to refer to a small number
indeed), rather than "vary" (changeable or change).

Before I go any further I'll say that I have problems like these myself.
Often I get things back after they have been marked with simple things
like that pointed out and I say to myself "I should have spotted that".
And I should have.  But I didn't.

This is, however, perhaps the sort of thing that the original person was
referring to about your grammar.  If your experience in Britian is
anything like mine in NZ, then I'd say that your grammar was very good
_compared_to_ the standard of other people.  In much the same way, my
grammar appears wonderful when I compare it with the things that some
people I know write; but I don't think it is all that good.

Unfortunately I can't really suggest a good solution to your problem.
In my case when it really matters I get my mother (an editor) to read
through the things first.  I've played around with various grammar
checkers (which do pick up things like using "hear" when it should be
"here"; at least if they are well written) but I find the extra detail
that they put in is annoying.  For instance, one of them continiously
tried to get my to write in the active voice.  I don't like to write
everything in the active voice, and I was soon annoyed by it.  You may
wish to experiment.  The main one I was using was an old version of
Grammatik; although I've used the grammar checker in MicroSoft Word 4
and 5 as well.

>  Another problem is that the majority of
> spell checkers understand american spelling.  Well that's fine, It's just
> that I am not american, nor for that matter do I wish to become one.
>
This is a problem, for two reasons.  Firstly it means that they are
words in there that shouldn't be ("color" for instance), that thus
can't be detected as typing errors.  Secondly, there are often words
missing that should be in there ("colour" for instance), which leads to
needless reports of mis-spellings, and makes one less likely to use the
program.

  [Better spelling checkers]

I think spelling checkers and grammar checkers need to be combined, and
they also need to be customised for the person who is using them.  This,
obviously means some personal customisation, but if you buy a spelling
checker for British English (a variation of which is used in New
Zealand), then it should at least have words like "colour" and
"organisation" in it, and not have words like "color" and "organization"
in it. Doesn't seem to work that way though, or at least not with
software that is available in NZ.

One final note, about your lecture style (in the quotees deleted).  IMHO,
it is a very good style.  The lectures I feel that I get the most out
of, and enjoy the most, are my Law lectures (I'm doing a Law and
Computer Science double major), where the "lectures" are more like a
guided class discussion.  Contrasting this with my Physics lectures
where I just sit there and get bored, the Law lectures are _much_
better.

Obviously some of this is the subject.  But I did have a good teacher
last year (final year of secondary school) for Physics who taught mostly
by talking/discussing the subject, with few notes, etc handed out.  I
found that I learnt better there than I am this year.  So, don't stop
what you are doing, I think it is a very good idea.

This seems to have got rather long.  Oh well.  I think I probably needed
to say it.  If it looks at all like a flame, I apologise; I'm on your
side. Honest.  :-)

--
Ewen McNeill, ewen@naos.actrix.gen.nz (or ewen@actrix.gen.nz)