Laura

Profile

Username:
troutbend
Name:
Laura
Location:
Estes Park, CO
Birthday:
08/01
Status:
Married
Job / Career:
Hotel - Hospitality

Stats

Post Reads:
482,969
Posts:
1942
Photos:
15
Last Online:
> 30 days ago
View All »

My Friends

9 days ago
> 30 days ago
> 30 days ago
> 30 days ago
> 30 days ago
> 30 days ago
> 30 days ago
> 30 days ago

Subscribe

This Oughta Be Good

Computing & Technology > Spelling, Grammar, and Tone
 

Spelling, Grammar, and Tone

Do you pay attention to the grammar checker in word processing programs? When I used to write business letters a lot of my phrasing would get flagged as too passive. But I felt it was necessary because our corporate culture was such that instead of saying:

This would get underlined in green by MS Word's grammar checker:
"Everyone knows the programmers don't know what they are doing."

instead of "Some felt that perhaps the programmers are struggling with the code."

Here is an item from www.abajournal.com:

"Do Your E-Mail Messages Convey Unintended Hostility? Try a Tone Editor

Lawyers who want to cleanse their e-mail messages of underlying hostility or barely disguised disdain may want to try out a new product called ToneCheck.

The program scans e-mail messages sent through Microsoft Outlook and flags phrases that appear to be fraught with unintended emotion, both negative and positive, according to stories by National Public Radio, ABC News and Business Insurance. But Fast Company questions whether removing too much emotion may be overkill.

Legal Blog Watch links to a demonstration.

The software, sold by a Canadian company called Lymbix Inc., spots phrases that are too emotionally charged. For example: Someone who writes, “I hate the constant interruptions” of e-mail, may be warned of an angry tone. Or someone who writes that something is annoying or troubling will be prompted to say instead, “It has been concerning me for some time.”

Fast Company put a May 14 New York Times column by Maureen Dowd into an e-mail and let ToneCheck do its work. The column was in the guise of an e-mail from the vice president asserting that Elena Kagan “is a real girl’s girl” and that assertions to the contrary were not to be believed.

“She never watches the Rachel Maddow Show,” the purported e-mail/column asserts. “By 9 p.m., Elena’s usually snuggled up in bed in a lacy peach peignoir, scrawling ‘Mrs. George Clooney’ in the margins of Blackstone’s Commentaries.” Later, Dowd writes in her vice presidential alter ego that Kagan "been talking for months about going to the first matinee of the new Sex and the City movie. Give that Cosmo girl a Cosmo and watch out!”

ToneCheck identified the Rachel Maddow comment as “angry” and the Cosmo girl sentence as "fearful."

Concludes Fast Company: “For people already afraid that their time in front of screens is taking the humanity out of communication, it’s best to leave digital tone-checking to the cyborgs."

posted on July 31, 2010 9:51 AM ()

Comments:

Re: Gunning Fog Index. No, I've never used it. But I have had so many writing classes, especially in college — English, journalism, public relations, poetry — that one learns the finer points. Plus I've been in love with words and writing since my early days in elementary school. Thank goodness for all my great teachers and mentors!
comment by marta on Aug 4, 2010 12:20 PM ()
Well, isn't THAT interesting! (Oops! too hostile! Strike that!) Let's try this. It was deemed interesting by me. (No! that would get flagged too! It's passive voice rather than active voice!) Well damn it! I give up! (Too angry?????????????)
comment by redimpala on Aug 2, 2010 9:15 AM ()
It's easy to draw the shape of an unnatural state, but not very distinctive compared to states with panhandles.
comment by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 6:08 AM ()
I wonder what ToneCheck would say about some of those rabid right-wing blogs on Blogster! OMG. Or what it would do with, say, "Kiss my a--! Too angry? Too sexual? Too much fun? As a copy editor, I think it could be hilarious.

By the way, Happy Colorado Statehood Day! On August 1 in 1876, Colorado became the 38th state admitted to the Union. It's one of only three states in the U.S. without any natural borders — something like a river or mountain range or desert, which separates it from its neighbors. The other two states with no natural borders: Colorado's neighbors Wyoming and Utah.
comment by marta on Aug 1, 2010 6:29 PM ()
More of your reply is above. I wonder who buys that tone checking software. Did you ever do much with the Gunning Fog Index? We used to toy with it when writing Material Safety Data Sheets, trying to write workplace safety info at a high school level.
reply by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 6:11 AM ()
The very picture of Ms. Kagan and George Clooney together tickles my funny bone.
comment by elderjane on Aug 1, 2010 7:14 AM ()
Have you seen his movie "Up in the Air" yet? I liked it a lot.
reply by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 6:05 AM ()
huh. I could have used this with past ex bf's.
comment by kristilyn3 on July 31, 2010 8:38 PM ()
Trust a Canadian company to try to make emails drip with maple syrup.
comment by nittineedles on July 31, 2010 3:16 PM ()
Speaking of maple syrup, I bought some bacon cured with it, and the whole house smells like pancakes when I cook it. It's not as versatile as regular bacon - too sweet to go into most entrees. I won't buy it again.
reply by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 6:04 AM ()
All of my hostility is intended.
comment by tealstar on July 31, 2010 1:51 PM ()
reply by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 6:02 AM ()
reply by nittineedles on July 31, 2010 3:17 PM ()
I just do my thing and hope for the best
comment by larryb on July 31, 2010 10:40 AM ()
You know how foggy legalese is anyway, this is all they need - to start trying to tone it down - to make it incomprehensible.
reply by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 6:00 AM ()
Good information there.I had the same or similar problem in my words processing.
comment by fredo on July 31, 2010 10:02 AM ()
Somehow the rules of grammar (according to the Microsoft Word creators) don't match up with political correctness and tact.
reply by troutbend on Aug 2, 2010 5:58 AM ()

Comment on this article   


1,942 articles found   [ Previous Article ]  [ Next Article ]  [ First ]  [ Last ]