From: James_Hastings-Trew@telepro.UUCP (James Hastings-Trew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: flamefest '92
Distribution: world
Date: 27 Aug 92 23:13:38 CST
Organization: TelePro Technologies

In a message dated Thu 27 Aug 92 18:24, Dtiberio@libws2.ic.sunysb.edu (davi
wrote:

 D> flame war against his writing skills. Below is a sample transcript of
 D> two
 D> conversations written by Jeff Young, followed by my professional
 D> analysis
 D> using Proper Grammar v1.0.


 D>         PROPER GRAMMAR 1.0 OUTPUT:

 D>     Sentences                    24
 D>     Words per Sentece             8.33
 D>     Simple Sentences             12
 D>     Complex Sentences            12
 D>    *Passive Voice                 0

 D>     Flesch Reading Ease Score    73.17 Fairly Easy
 D>     Flesch Reading Grade Level    6th Grade
 D>     Flesch-Kincaid Score          5.12
 D>     Gunning's Fog Index           5.13


 D>     * Notice how Jeff Young correctly avoids using
 D>       Passive Voice sentence structures, which is more
 D>       than most of us could hope to do.

David, I will try to post an answer to this as politely and sensitively as
I can:

Only an idiot would trust a readability report from a Computer program.

Jeff Young's use of grammar is so bad that his writings are nearly
unintelligible. If you were watching a science fiction movie, and the movie
had a computer in it that spoke like Jeff writes, you would be spending
most of your time scratching your head and asking the person next to you,
"What did he say?"

I am not suprised that Proper Grammar reported that he did not use passive
voice sentence structures - most of his sentences have no structure at all.

I am suprised that Proper Grammar's reading ease score rated Jeff's writing
at "fairly easy." I imagine that the failing of the algorithm is that the
programmer assumed that the writer of the text would at least make a fair
effort to use intelligible sentence construction. And proper grammar is
only the start of intelligibility. The ability to organize thoughts into
sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into a document that
has a purpose is something that is crucial to readability and
understandability. Proper Grammar simply cannot test a text to this degree.
It cannot make sure that each paragraph has a single theme, and that the
document as a whole has an overall theme and purpose which is explored to
some degree in the paragraphs it contains.

Consider the following questions raised by the snippet of quoted material
above (material which you yourself chose):

"You deep dodo!"
What is a "deep dodo?" (I think he meant deep doo-doo)
Why are you one? (I think he meant you are in) 

"WHERE is direct slot on A600"
Who is A600? Is that a person? (without the object "the" infront of the
name, I can only assume it is a proper name, not an identification of an
object.)

"News said $799 LIST PRICE so Falcons will be $700 and lower"
Why does it follow that Falcons will be 700 dollars and lower if "News"
(whoever that is) said the amount 799 dollars? (the quoted text has the
missing object "the" to differentiate the noun "News" from a proper name,
and sets up a logical relationship between what "news" said, and the price
of a Falcon -- the use of the word "so" is like "therefore", and the
conclusion is not supported by the presented facts.)

"vAApor cards not selling so hot!"
What is a vaapor, and why are there capital letters in the middle of the
word?
(I think he was making a joke, by including the "AA" from "AA Chipset" in
the word vapor. The result of the joke is an unreadable word. This analysis
does not even touch on the reality that the "AA Chipset" does not sell on a
"card")

I don't read his stuff because it is usually repetitive, incomprehensible
babbling. People should learn the English language before cluttering up
this newsgroup with this verbal diarreha. Besides, anybody who uses more
than one exclamation mark per sentence does not deserve to be read.

-- Via DLG Pro v0.992

Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy