Dan Antion

Times Have Changed – 1LinerWeds

I have been editing my work-in-progress, and I cranked up Microsoft Word’s capabilities to aid in that task. In short, it’s checking to see if I’m making mistakes in a wider universe of writing tasks. I have run across an annoying reflection of what I can only assume is the age and experience of the programmers writing these tools.

Text is a verb but call is not
“Is called?” Seriously, that’s your suggestion? I don’t think so

I thought ‘call,’ in this context was a verb.

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, and would like to join in on the fun, you can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

“Um. you there. The dish is empty. Can you put some water in there?”
The bunny uses this bowl. When it’s empty she knocks it over
A peanut and fresh water
The bunny has been nibbling on this, but it is blooming
Forsythia is starting to bloom
The lilac leaves have broken out
It won’t be long now before I can’t see this from here
The little bridge over the canal is visible, as is the tail end of an AMTRAK train
The river is receding, but there is much cleanup to be done
The walk is closed
The Colt dome under the full moon
Duck
Hi Mr. Robin
MiMi wants to check out the yard


If you like magical realism with suspense, action and a bit of family sarcasm, you will enjoy these books:

Knuckleheads
The Evil You Choose
When Evil Chooses You

Series page on Amazon

My profile page (and books) on Lulu

All available on Kindle Unlimited!

69 comments

    • I know! Monday morning I walked in a winter coat with a knit hat and gloves. Today I walked in a baseball cap and a lightweight vest. I guess yesterday was spring. I hope you’re having a good week, Judy.

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  6. Picture the painting “The Scream.” That is my reaction to the “correction.” A help it’s not. But I think you are exactly right that it’s a sign that times have changed — but then Bob Dylan warned us long ago.

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    • Grammar is not my strong suit, LIz, so I crank them up when I’m trying to edit. I can opt to click “Don’t check for this in the future” but I don’t know what “this” is. Will that cause it to ignore the cases where I do need a verb? Sometimes, in my attempt to cut words, I go a little too far with the cursor. It’s just amazing to see what I can only guess are the assumptions being built into these algorithms.

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      • I think the biggest difficulty with automated grammar checkers is that English is such an idiosyncratic language. For ever grammar rule, there is an exception, some of which depend on context. And you’re right that if we don’t know the name of a particular grammatical construction (the “this”), we can’t look it up when we check our work for grammatical correctness. I like the following “Essentials” approach taken by the Excelsior Online Writing Lab. https://owl.excelsior.edu/grammar-essentials/.

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  11. Somebody needs to check the grammar checkers!

    LOVE MiMi looking outside to see if she’s missing anything!

    Yep, area around the river needs some serious cleanup.

    Your Forsythia looks fantastic. Mine only has a few blossoms here and there.

    How thoughtful of the bunny to let you know when their dish needs fresh water! Too funny.

    Enjoy this warm spell Dan. Sit down, relax, and watch your weeds grow…I mean grass! 🤗
    Ginger

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    • We do let the weeds grow, Ginger. The bunnies love those “weeds” – we get snooty sometimes and call them perennials :-)

      The forsythia is funny. One day, it has a dull yellow look and the next day, BOOM!

      The bunny kicks that dish out of the way when it’s empty or dirty. In the summer, we have two much larger ones out there, and he/she does the same thing.

      MiMi says hi (actually I think she says “get off my lawn” but she’d say hi to you. Enjoy the heat wave.

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  14. ‘Um, you there’…right up there with ‘you people.’ Cracks me up–how not to get people to help you. 😆 But in Smokey’s case, I’d make an exception.

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  16. One of the nice things about writing “medieval” fantasy is I don’t have to deal with rapidly changing technology, Dan. “Called” and “texted” aren’t part of the vocabulary. Great spring pics. It’s snowing like crazy here.

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  17. Dan, I took note of that shot where you mentioned it wouldn’t be long before the view was obstructed. Driving around our area, we see so many homes on hillsides which are completely out of view once Spring sprouts forth. Those homes give new meaning to the phrase “wooded lot.” Leaf removal is a massive task for those homeowners. That is one chore I do not miss, even though we do manage to still get our fair share of leaves from others’ trees!

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  24. Love the spring photos, Dan. Your grammar example has me shaking my head. My grammar gripe, or at least one of them, is that Apple has decided to insert commas or otherwise mess around in my texts, often where they don’t belong. VERY irritating!!

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  27. I like your one-liner pics Dan and how nice to see the Forsythia in bloom. We had 84 degrees today and on this morning’s walk, all the early trees had blossoms. I think the rest of the trees will follow.

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