suchow
commented
8 years ago I ran a couple of works by Shakespeare through proselint and, even ignoring the various words marked as archaic, he sets off a lot of flags.
What does it say about the grammatical mavens and pundits this project relies on that they would mark one of the greatest authors of the English language as being chock full of stylistic errors?
Thanks for your feedback.
I don't find it generally problematic that Shakespeare's writing is flagged. First, note that his writing is not modern English, and thus his word choice is often archaic in a modern context. Next, note that he is more playful and inventive with language than is acceptable in everyday writing. And much of his work is not prose.
If there are specific false alarms that you think we should address, like the one you list below, I encourage you to open an issue and we'll try to fix the problem.
Here is one that came up a lot, for example: Wallace's uncomparables, i.e. "most true" or "most fatal." This seems like a bad rule because the word "most" does not necessarily imply comparison. It can just as well act as a intensifier, like the word "very." Wallace might argue that truth is binary, either it is or it isn't, but that clearly isn't true. Proof: the expression "partially true."
Or consider the word "accurate" and the related word "precise," which Wallace cites directly in the quote in the docstring of wallace/uncomparables.py. Yet accuracy isn't binary, as he argues, in many usages. In particular, in a scientific usage, both accuracy and precision are not discrete; they are mathematically quantifiable on a continuous scale.
Yes, some of these adjectives can be reasonably compared, particularly in formal mathematical treatments, where one can discuss degrees of accuracy and precision. I'll open an issue.
I'm sure I could apply similar arguments against a lot of the stylistic "suggestions" offered here. A lot of them strike me as writers simply stroking their own egos in a more-grammatical-than-thou fashion.
Can you be more specific about which suggestions you find problematic?
It would make much more sense to apply a critical lens to proposed rule additions to this project, rather than simply adding any old rule because some famous dude said it.
Our bar is higher than fame — it's mastery. There are well-researched opinions of experts such as Bryan Garner that are available in books and can be translated into code, and which we feel comfortable adopting with minimal scrutiny. If there are others whose advice we adopted, but perhaps should not, that's an issue and we can address it, but I'd rather talk about specifics.
I'd be happy to have someone like you pointing out all the false alarms and missteps that we take. Please don't be discouraged by my pushing back — we welcome the criticism.
I ran a couple of works by Shakespeare through proselint and, even ignoring the various words marked as archaic, he sets off a lot of flags.
What does it say about the grammatical mavens and pundits this project relies on that they would mark one of the greatest authors of the English language as being chock full of stylistic errors?
Here is one that came up a lot, for example: Wallace's uncomparables, i.e. "most true" or "most fatal." This seems like a bad rule because the word "most" does not necessarily imply comparison. It can just as well act as a intensifier, like the word "very." Wallace might argue that truth is binary, either it is or it isn't, but that clearly isn't true. Proof: the expression "partially true."
Or consider the word "accurate" and the related word "precise," which Wallace cites directly in the quote in the docstring of wallace/uncomparables.py. Yet accuracy isn't binary, as he argues, in many usages. In particular, in a scientific usage, both accuracy and precision are not discrete; they are mathematically quantifiable on a continuous scale.
I'm sure I could apply similar arguments against a lot of the stylistic "suggestions" offered here. A lot of them strike me as writers simply stroking their own egos in a more-grammatical-than-thou fashion.
It would make much more sense to apply a critical lens to proposed rule additions to this project, rather than simply adding any old rule because some famous dude said it.