I know, just like I have, you have seen the ads on TV, your browser and most everywhere for Grammarly (grammarly.com). The ads have great testimonials with people from all walks of life; authors, students, bloggers and many more. They all say how great Grammarly is for catching your grammar errors as well as spelling and more. As you know from reading this column as well as some of my other writing that I write…a lot.
I have always known and trusted that Microsoft Word had it all under control. Even though I occasionally had to make corrections that Word missed. Sometimes it misses things that are obvious. I will never forget one of the first articles I wrote many, many years ago. I was writing about something that was very “popular.” Unfortunately, I wrote “poplar” and my first editor after Word which is me checked it. Then I handed it off to my favorite and prettiest editor, my wife and she found a couple which I corrected. I then sent it on to the publisher for editing one last time. And guess what? All of the editors missed it. So I basically wrote about a program that was a tall, fast-growing tree of north temperate regions, widely grown for timber and pulp, instead of one that many people use allot.
{click the graphic for Grammarly demo – no sound}
It was finally caught when my wife had it mounted and framed then hung proudly on my office wall. Several months later I was fondly rereading my first work and BANG I saw it. Embarrassment and then laughter followed.
Guess what I did right after I downloaded and started using Grammarly last month? Correct, I loaded the infamous article that was now over 16 years old. Grammarly found it immediately as a “confused word” along with four other corrections. (I left them all for future generations to ponder.)
I am now a very strong supporter of Grammarly as it catches things now that have not been caught by others. Since I type fairly quickly I will many times type the word “you” when I intended to type “your.” My wife knows that and always finds them but now Grammarly gets them every time.
I am talking here about the free version; however, they do have several paid versions which you can do more with. And yes, it is now acceptable to end a sentence with “with” according to many sources including Grammarly. The free version gives a weekly fact sheet on your typing skills and comparisons to other in their system. Check this article online and I will show you mine.
It is not perfect. I was apparently taught to “not” use a comma before the word, “and” in a list. Using a comma there is called the Oxford comma and has been tossed out; however, Grammarly always inserts one. Another is with numbers in a sentence. The Associated Press style basically indicates that if the number is a sentence and is below 10 write it out; one, seven, six, etc. If 10 or over, write the numbers. Grammarly accepts it any way you type a number. Another is the word or symbol for percent. Which is correct: 50% or 50 percent? Grammarly accepts both.
Sometimes grammar is tough. Okay, OK, O.K., oh who cares?
