Automated grammar-checking

The Economist:

READERS are still debating my criticism of Kyle Wiens's "I won't hire people with bad grammar" post on language and computer code. To recap, Mr Wiens said "at its core, code is prose" and I said "no, it isn't." My criticism had more to it than that (and granted Mr Wiens several points). But here is a test, illustrative if not dispositive: if code is prose, then prose is a kind of code, and excellent coders should be able to write meta-code that would error-check natural language (analogous to how compilers check a program).

As it happens, Ben Yagoda recently tested Grammarly, a service that, for $140 a year, will be "an automated proofreader and your personal grammar coach." Yesterday he posted his results:

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 6, 2012 5:11 AM
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