Free automated grammar correction

There are some places on the web where you don't want your writing to show up, such as The "Blog" of "Unnecessary Quotation Marks." But sometimes we all need help making sure our writing is flawless. What's a person to do? Help is at hand. Here is an article that lists some online sources for automated checking of your writing, including both spell checking and grammar correction. The article does mention that these tools are in addition to your own careful proofreading, and discusses some of the shortcomings of automated tools. For example, comma splices and dangling modifiers may not be identified. You should never assume a document that passes these tests will have no errors.

Is "unfriend" a word?

The 2010 AP Style guide, "the essential tool for writers, editors, students and public relations specialists," according to its website, has just been released. This reference is used to determine such things as what new terms are acceptable when referring to social media. In it, "friend" and "unfriend" are both verbs. I don't know about you, but we regularly disagree on this point in my house. Other terms found in this edition include app, e-reader (still gets the hyphen), and flu-like.

The New York Times calls out it errors

Nothing like a little preemptory self criticism: this article shows some grammar and syntax errors from this week's NY Times, with corrections. The explanations are all very clear and simple.

Indexes or indices?

I was reading an article on Friday about the volatility in the stock market, and it referred to "the major indexes" and I got to wondering whether that was grammatically correct. There are a handful of English words that have irregular plurals. For example, did you know the plural form of appendix is appendices when you are talking about the section in the back of the book, but it's appendixes when you are talking about multiple internal organs? Matrix takes the plural form matrices but I don't think you could properly use that form when referring to multiple copies of the Keanu Reeves movie. The Wall Street Journal apparently considers both forms acceptable. Wiktionary claims that indexes is more common in the US and indices is the British form. But does common usage make a word correct? Certainly that's not true initially, though it does tend to become a recognized correct usage if it persists. Irregardless is an example of a word that has come to be accepted, though Merriam Webster's online dictionary still claims it's not a word.

Attention, Grammar Police

Perhaps you are aware that "less" is used when describing things that cannot be counted: water, dirt, sand, that sort of thing. "Fewer," on the other hand, is used to describe countable things: rocks, ice cubes, and so on. So in the grocery store line, "Ten Items or Less" is not technically correct. It really should read "Ten Items or Fewer." Still, at this point, I think most shoppers would find that a bit awkward. So the British grocery chain, Tesco, has decided to change the wording on its signs to read Up to 10 Items instead. Of course, that's brought on criticism that this wording is ambiguous: can a shopper use this lane with ten items, or only with nine? And if most stores and most shoppers are used to "Ten Items or Less" can it really be wrong to use this wording?