Tag Archives: spelling

How to use Grammarly

You’ve sweated out your story, lived, died, and bled with your characters, edited your work tens if not hundreds of times, published, and your first reviewer complains about the mistakes.

Tear hair out here!

Though I can’t find a scientific article to prove it, I did search “Why can’t we edit our own work” and most sites agree: it’s because we’re too invested in what we’ve written. Because we’ve read it over so many times, our brains know what we want to say, fill in the blanks, and we miss our errors. Microsoft Word does a good job of highlighting what it thinks are spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, but even that might not be good enough.

Enter Grammarly.

Grammarly might just be the best invention since sliced bread where publishing is concerned, but it does have its faults. Grammarly is only a computer program, it’s not an editing god, and every suggestion it makes must be taken with a grain of salt  (i.e., don’t go making haphazard changes just because Grammarly–or Word, for that matter–says so).

Having published five of my own books with the sixth on the way, and about seven or so more by other authors under my EMSA Publishing imprint,  I’ve adopted Grammarly as my last ditch edit before publishing. Here are a few things I’ve learned.

 1. Canadian spellings are marked as errors.

I’ve blogged about this before. Did you know that Canada (and the UK) are the rule and the US is the exception? What I mean is that what my American friends think are “cute”, Canadian foibles are actually the norm practically everywhere else in the world. And while you can change Grammarly’s dictionary for British English, there is no Canadian option. This might pose a problem because like the UK, we have the odd double consonant rule before adding a suffix, and then there’s the whole “our” ending thing, but unlike the UK, Canadians, for example, prefer “mom” to “mum”. It is for this reason I prefer to keep my dictionary set to American English.

The bottom line is that you have a choice if you’re Canadian: write in American English, or know your Canadian spelling rules and be sure to do a Google search to check all spellings Grammarly marks as incorrect.

2. Do a search and replace.

Grammarly marks words that should be hyphenated but aren’t, or words that are hyphenated but shouldn’t be. It also marks compound words that shouldn’t be or vice versa. The trouble is that it doesn’t do this consistently. I’ve found that, in many cases, it really doesn’t matter as long as you hyphenate or compound consistently.

For example, should it be “eco-terrorist” or “ecoterrorist”? I did a Google search and discovered that Wikipedia and The Toronto Star use the hyphenated version, while the FBI and The Washington Post don’t (and though the Star is Canadian, I don’t believe this is another US-Canada dichotomy). My conclusion is that both are correct, as long as I pick one and stick to it throughout. In some cases, Grammarly picked up on this, in others it didn’t, and I had to go through my manuscript with a search and replace to make sure I was consistent throughout.

3. Know your comma rules.

Oh, those dreaded commas!

I’ve learned quite a bit about them on my editing journey, most of which can be read here, but the bottom line is that while there are rules, there are some exceptions due to style. Grammarly often told me I was missing a comma where I believed there should be none, and told me I had an incorrect comma where I believed there should absolutely be one.  The bottom line is, you have to know your comma rules.

Perhaps the biggest issue I have when using Grammarly is with the Oxford comma, the one that says you must separate all items of a list with a comma. Here’s an article on the Grammarly blog explaining what the Oxford comma is and why people care so much about it. The Oxford comma conundrum is compounded with the rule about commas and conjunctions (that unless you have two independent clauses on either side of the conjunction, no comma is necessary). Grammarly often thought I was connecting two dependent clauses with a comma before my “and” when in fact, it was an item in a list with the Oxford comma.

For example:

He tried to patch things up, went into my room, discovered I was gone, and was waiting up for me.

In this case, Grammarly marks the comma in red as being incorrect, but in my mind, it denotes the fourth item in a list with an Oxford comma. This sentence has a parallel structure, detailing four things my main character’s father did:

  • he tried to patch things up
  • he went into her room
  • he discovered she was gone
  • and he was waiting up for her when she returned.

According to the way the Oxford comma works, to separate items in a list, this is absolutely the correct place for a comma to be, yet Grammarly marked it as an error.

Here’s another example:

Not to mention the fact that I’d just broken my dad’s heart.

So first: yes, this is a sentence fragment, but stylistically so. Secondly, Grammarly suggests a comma go after “dad’s” and before “heart”. The reason: “When speaking directly to people, their names must be set off by commas. Consider adding the comma(s).”

This sentence is a part of my main character’s internal conflict. She is in her bedroom, alone, thinking to herself and not speaking to anyone, least of all her father. Grammarly was way off the mark on this one.

The takeaway? Question every change Grammarly suggests before you make it.

4. Check, check, and double-check.

Grammarly occasionally marks incorrect word use when there is none. Case in point:

“Cain broke up with me,” I bawl, barely intelligible, to myself, anyway, between the sobs.

Grammarly wondered if I didn’t mean “bowl” instead of “bawl”, as if “I bowl, barely intelligible” makes any more sense.

“My sobs have long subsided into sniffles…”

Grammarly wants to change “sobs” to “sons”, because it makes more sense in the context.

Note that I’m not bashing Grammarly here. Rather, I use these examples to explain why it is important to check everything Grammarly suggests against alternate sources, particularly if the resulting change would make little sense.

5. Is your apostrophe used to indicate a possessive or a contraction?

Knowing how and when to use an apostrophe is paramount, especially when you’re relying on an app to find your errors.

For example,

 

They made it into the news because of their less than conventional behaviour during the protest and was forgotten a few days later.

Grammarly suggests that “their” is a “confused possessive and contraction”  and goes on to tell me that “It appears that the possessive pronoun their should be a contraction instead. Consider changing it.”

My option for change is therefore:

because of they are less than conventional

rather than “their” which Google defines as  “belonging to or associated with the people or things previously mentioned or easily identified,” which seems to be the obvious choice.

The moral of the story is: Grammarly is great, but only if you know what you’re doing when you’re using it. Technology should not be used as a replacement for our learning proper spelling, punctuation, and grammatical rules. Having said that, we must recognize that we live in a revolutionary age. We have millions (if not more) web pages to suggest spelling, and punctuation and grammatical usage at our fingertips, and authors must get into the habit of looking things up before they make changes, particularly when a collection of ones and zeros–which have the capacity for neither human speech nor human creativity–tells us our instincts are incorrect.

English is a Funny Language

As I write this post, I am going back and editing my recently published novel, I Was, Am, Will Be Alice, via Grammarly. I do this as a result of a review that claimed I had quite a few errors in my book, which I took as a personal affront, as I freelance as an editor. Grammarly tagged quite a few “errors” that really aren’t errors in the true sense of poor grammar and/or typographical errors (although, admittedly, there were a few, but I could count these on my fingers and still have a few left over). I’ve decided to write this and other posts to set the record straight with respect to grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Here’s some of what I’ve learned:

OR vs. OUR

Both Canadians and Brits spell words like colour, neighbour, and favour (and a whole host of other words with similar endings) with an extra “u”, probably as a result of our French roots.

L vs. LL

Many words ending in “l” double the letter before adding the ending. Travelling is one of these words (as opposed to “traveling” in American English). There are exceptions to this rule, and “instalment” is one of them, spelled with a single “l” in Canadian but a double “l” (installment) in American. Weird.

The elusive E

It is perfectly acceptable to add an extra “E” in words such as “acknowledgement” and “judgement” in Canadian English (“acknowledgment” and “judgment” in American English respectively). Interestingly enough, the word “jewellery” is the proper, Canadian/British spelling of the American “jewelry”, contrary to what one of my reviewers criticized.

In Canadian English, “insure” tends to refer to issuing and insurance policy, whereas “ensure” means to make sure. Though some sites, like Writer’s Digest,  insist there is a difference, other sites, like The Oxford English Dictionary, say that while the primary meaning for “insure” is the insurance connection, it is sometimes used in American English to mean “to make sure”. It is for this reason that my American clients insist using “insure” throughout.

C vs. S

Many American spellings favour “se” rather than “ce”. Examples of this include “licence” (Canadian) vs. “license” (American); “offence” (Canadian) vs. “offense” (American) ; and “defence” (Candian) vs. “defense” (American).

Commas Inside or Outside of Quotation Marks?

While we’re on the subject of Canadian vs. American, it’s important to note that in American English, the commas and periods go on the inside of quotation marks, while in Canadian and British English, they go on the outside. Note that this does not apply to dialogue. For example,

American: Canadian spellings are frequently tagged by American reviewers as “errors.”

Canadian: Canadian spellings are frequently tagged by American reviewers as “errors”.

Which Came First: The Chicken or the Egg?

“Dialogue”, as it is spelled above, is correct in Canada, with Americans preferring “dialog”. Some websites say that “dialogue” is to be used for conversation and “dialog” for a pop-up box to communicate with a computer. I also read that “dialogue” is gradually being replaced, primarily in America, for the shorter, “dialog”. I have to wonder if the reason the shorter spelling is used for the computer is because dialog boxes originate in the States, and therefore, the American spelling is used. Definitely a chicken or egg scenario.

Interestingly enough, Canadian English distinguishes between “blonde” for a woman with blonde hair, and “blond” for a man. This is largely due to ties with the French, as this is the rule in French grammar. While some sites say that “blond” is common for both men and women, others say “blond” is always used though it is still acceptable to use “blonde” for a woman in Canadian English. I would argue that this is not the case in Canada and that one should always use “blonde” for women, but with such a loosey-gooesy rule, one can hardly call this an error, unless you use “blonde” to refer to a male.

In Conclusion…

Keep in mind that I come at this from a uniquely Canadian perspective. Many of the “errors” Grammarly marked in my manuscript were simply the difference between American and Canadian spellings, and these should not be considered errors. As most of my clients are American, I’ve learned a few things regarding the differences between Canadian, British, and American English, and I’ve learned that one rule does not fit all, and just when you think you have it, there’s an exception to the rule, and you’ve broken it! Much of what I know about spelling American, is recently learned, as to me, spelling Canadian is the norm (and I’d like to think I’m quite good at it, having won more than a few spelling bees in my youth). An American can no more call the Candian and/or British spelling of a word an error, any more than a Canadian or a Brit can call the American spelling an error.–if you’re going to read, and/or review indie books, you simply

The bottom line is, if you’re going to read, and/or review indie books, you simply must be aware of the differences. Hopefully, my posts will help.