Month: September 2019
Why Love Hurts: The Sociology of How Our Institutions Rather Than Our Personal Psychological Failings Shape the Romantic Agony of Modern Life | Brain Pickings
Kara Walker’s Hyundai Commission is at Tate Modern, London, 2 October to 5 April. {lgt41: Hoping not to miss out on this.}
An Illustrated Ode to Attentiveness and the Art of Listening as a Wellspring of Self-Understanding, Empathy for Others, and Reverence for the Loveliness of Life | Brain Pickings
Animals are wiser than humans
Often when we speak, our ideas fly out half formed, in scattered confessions and pronouncements, in tattered repartee…
Grammarly Premium has greatly helped me, but…
In my books, I have had trouble with typos and minor grammatical errors. I have only twice used professional proofreading/editing – my debut book and the second book. The results? Well, not perfect. And costly. I’m not good at proofreading my writing. I consider it exceedingly difficult and boring. I miss out on far too many minor errors, although I painstakingly go through my writing several times.
Sometime ago, I began using Grammarly Premium, which helped quite a lot. But I have mixed feelings because errors keep showing up, after running my writing in the app. Grammarly Premium has indeed improved my awareness of minor grammatical errors, typos, and awkward sentences. However, it isn’t perfect: It doesn’t always get the meaning of sentences correctly or spotting every minor error.
Recently I tested a short passage from a best selling novel. The sentences are simple. I was curious though not surprised with the app’s evaluation.
I chose the following goals (in the app):
Audience: General
Formality: Neutral
Domain: General
Tone: Neutral
Intent: Tell A Story
[The passage contained four sentences in a row:
“He couldn’t stay on the farm forever. He needed tobacco, sugar, tea. He needed Aspros. He woke with a headache every morning.”
Grammarly’s assessment:
(1) Monotonous passage. These sentences seem repetitive because they all follow the same pattern. (I liked the passage.)
(2) Grammarly also recommends a synonym for “forever”.