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Word's editing tools has a similar functionality to grammarly. It's started recommending a bunch of edits in my creative writing works based off of inclusiveness. Nothing's wrong with the structure, nothing's confusing. All the words together are clear and understandable, it's just telling me to change it because oh no, someone might find a word used in a creative story offensive.
These kinds of editing softwares are atrocious for creative writing. It will do anything to sterilize the structure of the story and sometimes will drastically change sentences that are structurally correct, just because it thinks it should be something different.
You can turn the settings off, but if you're using office 365 through a browser, every new document will be back to its default settings and if you're using the local client installed on your computer, almost any update that touches the application will reset these features as well. It's like... If I'm trying to write a bad guy, he's probably going to have some pretty negative worldviews, about a world that doesn't exist and group of people that don't exist. Just leave my shit alone and stop trying to make it all sound like some semi-casual work email I'm sending out to the office. I am writing a story, I want the bad guy to offend peoples sense decency, I want my bad guy to sound like a bad guy. Stop recommending "inclusive" or " neutral" language. Fuck.
Also, it bitches about British spelling, which is annoying for someone who was mainly taught that as English as a foreign language. It's not incorrect to spell humour with a "u", actually.
Also this! I'm Canadian but have lived a long time in America, so I spell certain words the English way and certain words the US was depending on if I learned the word before or after I moved. It's frustrating to be told colour or favourite is incorrect when, simply put, it isn't.
Is there no setting for this in Grammarly? In Word you can change to UK English or Canadian English and it wouldn’t do a red underline for these words.
I canceled Grammarly a while ago. I use ChatGPT to fix spelling and grammatical errors. Another tool I like for rephrasing sentences is Quillbot, which can apply different writing styles.
i use that too. it usually just points out if theres a spelling error or grammatical (as in, missing punctuation or suggests a more common wording). theres also picky mode, thats the one that points out potentially offensive words. it's even adapted to my roleplay style, which isnt novel-structured
I agree. These services make our writing styles look and sound the same as anyone else using the service. It’s annoying catch my grammatical errors, and that’s it. Don’t rewrite my thoughts for me.
why did you ever stop using something like microsoft word or libreoffice then lol, those services do that already and I'm pretty sure grammarly tells you straight up it restructures your sentences or that it's a feature.
I actually don’t use grammarly or any services like grammarly for that reason alone. Tried it, didn’t like it and moved on. Where did I mention Microsoft?
I agree with this, I enabled it years ago to humor my boss. I used it for a few minutes before disabling, it sucks the personality out of writing. Probably a great tool for tech writers
According to the new commercial I saw, you can not understand work related emais and make it look like you know how to do your job by writing a response for you.
But that’s a setting you can change. There are options to not check for wordiness or formality and only tell you where you need to put a comma, etc. I also find it super useful for writing work stuff
I don't disagree with you but for most non-Humanities/Art major we could care less about individual styles in writing. We just want it done and Grammarly is a god send to deal with the minor nuances we don't care about but the English teacher does.
Writing and grammar are basic skills. I understand typos but needing something to correct how you write a sentence instead of learning through trial and error will strip you off of your ability to communicate properly. That's like saying we don't need to learn addition and subtraction because we have calculators. Like yes, we do have calculators but basic intuition is also important. With writing it isn't basic intuition as much as it is proper communication and emotional expression. Getting lazy about the most basic things is a horrible work ethic.
A lot of what you said isn't close to what I said or implied. I guess dealing with minor nuances equates to not knowing the fundamentals of writing? Also this was in the context of college, where it is presumed you have the basic skills; which most do.
Being redundant or unclear is not grammatically incorrect. Grammarly tries to correct writers for using writing styles that deviate from the most basic, easy to understand ones. Additionally, grammatical correctness is not necessarily a marker of good writing when talking about fiction or creative writing.
I *hate* the forced "do you want to sound more confident" suggestions when the whole entire point of my comment has been that I'm not sure about something. "Is this/isn't X more like Y or Z, maybe?" is apparently unacceptable writing 🙄
>Being redundant or unclear is not grammatically incorrect.
That's correct, but I'd argue that most circumstances where grammarly is actually useful, papers, essays etc., also require clear and concise language most of the time.
>Additionally, grammatical correctness is not necessarily a marker of good writing when talking about fiction or creative writing.
That I somewhat agree with, I can definitely ignore some minor mistakes if everything else is fine, but at some point it becomes painful to read.
You can turn off Oxford commas in Grammarly if you think this rule does not suit your needs. You don't need to turn everything into a nail and then complain that the hammer doesn't work the way you want.
There are lots of things Grammarly (and other AI) hate that aren't grammatically incorrect, and add personal touches/personality to your writing. You said you don't need to be grammatically incorrect to have personality, so I gave you an example.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I completely agree. I can't tell you how many sentences I typed, only for it to remove a word that actually makes sense in the sentence.
Word's editing tools has a similar functionality to grammarly. It's started recommending a bunch of edits in my creative writing works based off of inclusiveness. Nothing's wrong with the structure, nothing's confusing. All the words together are clear and understandable, it's just telling me to change it because oh no, someone might find a word used in a creative story offensive. These kinds of editing softwares are atrocious for creative writing. It will do anything to sterilize the structure of the story and sometimes will drastically change sentences that are structurally correct, just because it thinks it should be something different. You can turn the settings off, but if you're using office 365 through a browser, every new document will be back to its default settings and if you're using the local client installed on your computer, almost any update that touches the application will reset these features as well. It's like... If I'm trying to write a bad guy, he's probably going to have some pretty negative worldviews, about a world that doesn't exist and group of people that don't exist. Just leave my shit alone and stop trying to make it all sound like some semi-casual work email I'm sending out to the office. I am writing a story, I want the bad guy to offend peoples sense decency, I want my bad guy to sound like a bad guy. Stop recommending "inclusive" or " neutral" language. Fuck.
I'm curious what grammarly would say about Hemmingway or Cormac McCarthy's run-on sentences.
The trees shat testosterone and the sky was full of hatered
Also, it bitches about British spelling, which is annoying for someone who was mainly taught that as English as a foreign language. It's not incorrect to spell humour with a "u", actually.
Also this! I'm Canadian but have lived a long time in America, so I spell certain words the English way and certain words the US was depending on if I learned the word before or after I moved. It's frustrating to be told colour or favourite is incorrect when, simply put, it isn't.
Is there no setting for this in Grammarly? In Word you can change to UK English or Canadian English and it wouldn’t do a red underline for these words.
You’re right
I canceled Grammarly a while ago. I use ChatGPT to fix spelling and grammatical errors. Another tool I like for rephrasing sentences is Quillbot, which can apply different writing styles.
Agreed. I switched to language tool. It only points out actual errors.
How so?
i use that too. it usually just points out if theres a spelling error or grammatical (as in, missing punctuation or suggests a more common wording). theres also picky mode, thats the one that points out potentially offensive words. it's even adapted to my roleplay style, which isnt novel-structured
Grammarly is also flagged by Turnitin so with the AI inshitification trend Grammarly has also alienated the academic market
I agree. These services make our writing styles look and sound the same as anyone else using the service. It’s annoying catch my grammatical errors, and that’s it. Don’t rewrite my thoughts for me.
why did you ever stop using something like microsoft word or libreoffice then lol, those services do that already and I'm pretty sure grammarly tells you straight up it restructures your sentences or that it's a feature.
I actually don’t use grammarly or any services like grammarly for that reason alone. Tried it, didn’t like it and moved on. Where did I mention Microsoft?
For me grammrly just gives me commas. Also its really irritating to not be able to accept all suggestions at once.
I agree with this, I enabled it years ago to humor my boss. I used it for a few minutes before disabling, it sucks the personality out of writing. Probably a great tool for tech writers
According to the new commercial I saw, you can not understand work related emais and make it look like you know how to do your job by writing a response for you.
But that’s a setting you can change. There are options to not check for wordiness or formality and only tell you where you need to put a comma, etc. I also find it super useful for writing work stuff
I don't disagree with you but for most non-Humanities/Art major we could care less about individual styles in writing. We just want it done and Grammarly is a god send to deal with the minor nuances we don't care about but the English teacher does.
Writing and grammar are basic skills. I understand typos but needing something to correct how you write a sentence instead of learning through trial and error will strip you off of your ability to communicate properly. That's like saying we don't need to learn addition and subtraction because we have calculators. Like yes, we do have calculators but basic intuition is also important. With writing it isn't basic intuition as much as it is proper communication and emotional expression. Getting lazy about the most basic things is a horrible work ethic.
A lot of what you said isn't close to what I said or implied. I guess dealing with minor nuances equates to not knowing the fundamentals of writing? Also this was in the context of college, where it is presumed you have the basic skills; which most do.
Your writing style should not rely on incorrect grammar.
Being redundant or unclear is not grammatically incorrect. Grammarly tries to correct writers for using writing styles that deviate from the most basic, easy to understand ones. Additionally, grammatical correctness is not necessarily a marker of good writing when talking about fiction or creative writing.
I *hate* the forced "do you want to sound more confident" suggestions when the whole entire point of my comment has been that I'm not sure about something. "Is this/isn't X more like Y or Z, maybe?" is apparently unacceptable writing 🙄
>Being redundant or unclear is not grammatically incorrect. That's correct, but I'd argue that most circumstances where grammarly is actually useful, papers, essays etc., also require clear and concise language most of the time. >Additionally, grammatical correctness is not necessarily a marker of good writing when talking about fiction or creative writing. That I somewhat agree with, I can definitely ignore some minor mistakes if everything else is fine, but at some point it becomes painful to read.
Oxford commas are not grammatically incorrect, and Grammarly *hates* them. You can pry my commas out of my cold, dead hands.
You can turn off Oxford commas in Grammarly if you think this rule does not suit your needs. You don't need to turn everything into a nail and then complain that the hammer doesn't work the way you want.
There are lots of things Grammarly (and other AI) hate that aren't grammatically incorrect, and add personal touches/personality to your writing. You said you don't need to be grammatically incorrect to have personality, so I gave you an example.
Don't do Clippy like that.