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Aucbvax.2340 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Sat Jul 18 02:41:25 1981 Writing English >From JWALKER@BBNA Sat Jul 18 02:34:38 1981 I have for several years wanted to write a system with the goals you described in your note to Bug-EMACS and WorkS. (No funding has materialized though.)

Some work has been done on the problem by people at Bell Labs. See the paper by Lorinda Cherry in the June issue of SIGPLAN Notices. Still the real problems are those that you pointed out. How can a computer know your reasons for word choice? What is it possible to do without trying to implement a system that "understands" free text? (Good writing is more a matter of taste than of strict rules. Of course, if mediocre writers follow a set of strict rules, they are more likely to produce good writing than if they ignore the rules. But that's part of a different argument.)

I have a few EMACS functions that were designed to help in finding and correcting common problems -- changing "which" to "that" (if you care) and "may" to "might" or "can" (may is ambiguous). I'd like to hear from other individuals who have written functions to help with the job of writing as I am working on a technical writing environment.

Jan

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