Little trick for finding the right language construct (using Google) | Hacker News Reader

Little trick for finding the right language construct (using Google)

irosetta.com

18 pointsolalonde8 comments

I work on the grammar checking software After the Deadline and I use this trick all the time. I'm working on making my software support more languages and I have to rely on this to tell if something my software says is indeed accurate or not. Like pawing in the dark. :)

For English I use it at times too. If someone says "hey, you flagged this word as misused". I paste the window or words AtD can see into Google with the original word and later the suggestion. I then compare to see if it's reasonable my software made the decision it made with the limited context it looks at (2 words to the left, 1 to the right for misused words).

Fun stuff.

Interesting insight, thanks for sharing :)

What if you're trying to learn a new, popular language and you can't come up with one plausible construct, let alone two ?

The gutenberg project may be of help: if books are available in both a language you know as well as one you're trying to learn, it's highly probable you'll find your expression there, and the translation is next to trivial.

This is better than googling, for the reason stated above, but also Not Implemented Yet.

Sometimes helpful, but no one should use this method as authoritative. There are plenty of wrong constructions in English (or any other language) that are more popular than the correct ones. Using an "old style" grammar and/or dictionary is still more accurate.

I've done this several times. More than blindly looking at the number of search results returned like this article suggests, I actually look for some authoritative websites in the results (like NYT, WashingtonPost, or credible blogs). If it's good enough for NYT, it's good enough for me!

Doesn't grammar evolve with time ? I don't think any grammar is authoritative in english, and that's one of the reasons english has thrived as a language because it has evolved with time !