Dear Mr. A:
You wrote:

>I did something to my Grammar Slammer and now I can’t access it to use. While looking in my GS program, this morning, I clicked on a comand to replace my GS logo on the desktop with an icon in the toolbar. But now, when I click on that icon or even one in my Start area, all I get is a message :Grammar Slammer is already working. Well, it is but only the infomration files. How do I access the program to reverse what I did this morning. I need my Grammar Slammer!

The error message you are getting is the message you get when you click on the Grammar Slammer icon in the Start menu. If you get that message, look for either the toolbar or a small icon near your clock display.

It sounds like you are clicking on the wrong icon. On most Windows systems, there will be a tiny icon with a red “G” somewhere near your time display. Try right clicking on that icon. You should get a full menu. Left clicking on the icon will bring up the Grammar help file.

I’m trying the demo version of your grammar checker. I notice when I cut/paste the text to be checked, the Grammar Checker removes all additional line feeds and when I paste the corrected text in the original document the line feeds are different.
Is there a way of turning off this feature and have it leave the original type and count of line feeds unchanged?

The Grammar Slammer text box has few features so that it would be compatible with as many editing and word processing programs as possible. It does not directly strip or change any characters other than those it replaces or inserts. There are no adjustments of the kind you are asking about that can be made with Grammar Slammer.

You may want to experiment with the “Word Wrap” feature on the editor or word processor you are copying from. For example, it may be necessary to disable the word wrap before copying and then resetting it once you are done.

>This page outlines a “Grammar Slammer” from a kids’ TV show that was
> produced in Hamilton, Ontario in 1971.
>
> http://www.frightenstein.com/characters/other.html#grammarslammer
>
> From that page:
>
> < characters in it who don’t appear anywhere else in the show. At the start
> of each sketch, Igor makes a statement to the camera which contains some
> grammatical error (eg. my feets is killing me; this castle’s gonna
> collapse; ours is the worstest castle; that was the bestest meal I ever
> ate). A police siren wails and the Grammar Slammer pulls over Igor, and
> the camera pulls back to reveal the Grammar Slammer Bammer laying his big
> mitt on Igor’s shoulder. The Grammar Slammer is just a disembodied male
> voice, who harangues Igor for his bad grammar and ultimately reveals to
> him the correct version of his earlier statement (which appears in text on
> the screen), all the while trying to keep a lid on the Grammar Slammer
> Bammer’s aggression. The Grammar Slammer Bammer is the muscle of the
> outfit, a huge purple monster with long fur everywhere and hyperactive
> eyebrows, and a very deep voice. The GSB is another of the funniest
> characters on the show; he wants nothing more than to pummel Igor for his
> bad grammar, and is continuously making threats and winding up to land a
> big punch on Igor’s noodle (much to Igor’s dismay), but his boss the
> Grammar Slammer never lets him follow through. There’s nothing I would
> like more to see than the GSB haul off on Igor, but it never happens. At
> the end, as Igor scampers off the GSB promises to “hammer Igor tomorrow,
> for sure”.>>
>
> The show also featured mini physics lessons.
>
> “The Hilarious House of Frightenstein” is now being re-broadcast on
> Canada’s Drive-in Classics digital channel.

Thanks. What a hoot!

Dear BA:

You wrote:
> I’m trying to figure out why my Word grammar check highlighted the word
> “lies” in the following sentence: “Therein lies the problem.” It
> suggested the word “lays” which makes no grammatical sense to me at all.
> Is this possibly just an error? I wonder if it might be since when I type
> “The problem lies therein,” grammar check doesn’t object. Can you shed
> some light? Thanks!
>
The checker looks for patterns. It does not think or read anyone’s mind.

“Lie” is an intransitive verb; it is not followed by a direct object. (For help, click on the “Look in Grammar Slammer” button, or look for “Lay vs. Lie” under “Common Mistakes and Choices“). Therefore, when the checker sees the verb “lies” followed by the article “the” plus a noun, it looks like the verb is being followed by a direct object. It is not in the case above because the sentence is inverted–the subject follows the verb. The checker has a “reason” to flag this pattern, but you have just as good a reason to simply click “ignore.”

In the second instance, the verb “lies” is followed by an adverb, so there is no indication that there might be a direct object; therefore, as you put it, the checker does not object.

If you have not done so, we recommend reading the “What to Expect in Grammar Programs” file which comes with Grammar Slammer. That will give you an idea of what checkers can and cannot do. They are helpful tools, but they are meant to help you decide.

Dear Dr. D:

You wrote:

Dear English Plus,

I recently found the Grammar Slammer, and I really like the idea. This can be invaluable to me and lots of other folks. I have had a few problems with it that I want to tell you about. It has given me some bad error notices and recommendations.

text: … Ed will incorporate …
GS says: “will” conflicts with verb “incorporate”
No, this really just intended to say that Ed will do this action, but GS missed the meaning and gave a false error indication.

text: … an Electromechanical …
GS says: use “a” before words that begin with consonants
Last time I looked, E was a vowel.

text: … an Executive …
GS says: use “a” before words that begin with consonants
GS recommends: a Executive
This is plain wrong.

text: … an EML
GS says: use “a” before words that begin with consonants
GS recommends: a EML
This is plain wrong.

text: … to realize high reliabilty while facilitating development …
text identified by GS: reliability while
GS says: subject “reliability” conflicts with verb “while”
GS suggests
high reliability whiles
high reliabilities while
GS just missed the mark all the way around here.

text: … then will adapt …
GS says: subject “will” conflicts with verb “adapt”
GS suggests
then will adapts
then wills adapt

I hope that this little bit of feedback will be useful.

Thanks for the input. This illustrates the limitations of grammar checkers. If you have not done so, please read the file “What to Expect from Grammar Programs” that comes with Grammar Slammer Deluxe with Checkers. I can tell you what the checker did in each case. It was wrong, but it gave you the choice of changing or not changing. There is little that can be done about it.

Three cases are “Possible subject-verb mismatches” with the verb “will.” “Will” is sometimes a noun, so the checker is making sure it is not a conflict. Clearly, none of these are, so you simply click “ignore.” If you get this a lot and find it annoying, simply uncheck “Subject-Verb Agreement” under “Grammar Options” button.

Similarly, “while” is sometimes a verb, so there would be a conflict if it were a verb. Since it is not a verb in this sentence, you can click “Ignore.”

The other example, with “an” plus “EML” is a bug. Your note alerted me to the fact that any word with a capital vowel preceded by “an” is going to be picked up. Again, you can just “Ignore” it, but it will show up. This may not be something we can easily correct because it connected with the Windows DLL which we use. At least capitals following “an” are rare. Most of the time the capitalized word would be a name, so it would not have an indefinite article. We will look into it, and thank you for pointing this out.

For more on the use and limits of Grammar Checkers see https://englishplus.com/news/readthis.htm.

Dear Mr. JD:

You wrote:
> Hello,
> I have purchased Grammar Slammar Delux and I like the product. I want to
> ask if it’s possible to scroll the text down in the checker window? When I
> start the checker the selected words “errors” shows from top to bottom.
> When I continue running the checker I got the selected words or phrases
> only at the bottom of the window. It gives me a problem when I am in the
> middle of a sentence and I can’t see the part after, where the checker has
> marked an “error”. Then I want to go into the checker so I can see the
> whole sentence. I can click on “cancel” that will close the check grammar
> and past the text back from the clipbord. But when I open the checker
> again it starts from the beginning of the document. I would be good to
> have this option to go into the checker window.

Unfortunately, that is something we cannot program around because of the checker engine we are using. Basically, the checker “takes over” the text page and you have to wait until the checker is finished. That was a concession we had to make to make it compatible with as many editors as possible.

>Another well option would be the possibility to place the cursor anywhere
>in the document and then start the checker at that place. I would be very
>glad if you will send me an answer with suggestions, how I can solve this
>problems or possibilities.

What you can do is highlight a portion of the document at a time using your mouse. Click any button to check. Then it asks you “Check on the selected text?” Click “Yes,” and only the area you highlighted will be checked. That way, you will not have to check through the whole document again.

Dear SV:

You wrote:
> I need to know who is the author and knowledge authority behind English Plus Grammar (esp. punctuation). I agree with the information and have used it in an exchange of views in correcting someone but have been challenged to know what “authority” there is behind this knowledge. For that reason I am wondering on what you base your information and the background/education, etc. of any authors.
>
Most of my material was gathered from research of various high school grammar texts, writing style sheets and guidelines (e.g., New York Times, U. of Chicago), and some popular grammar and writing books. I have a degree in
English from Harvard and have been teaching English at a private school in Connecticut for 20 years. It has been about ten years since I did most of the original work, so I am not sure I can recall all the texts, but they included Prentice-Hall, Warriner’s, Fowler’s, and McDougall-Littel. In some cases I went back to nineteenth century sources such as Linsley and Webster. In a few instances, especially with controversial topics like preposition at the end of a sentence or split infinitive, I consulted concordances of Bibles and famous authors to look for patterns.

For the spelling component of Grammar Slammer Deluxe, I mostly took my cue from errors I had noted in writings of many kinds–in some cases, even my own mistakes. For the spelling rules, I used some of the same sources named above, and, in some cases, put my own together based on observable patterns.

I hope this helps.

Dear Nicole:

You wrote:
> I have a question about your Grammar Slammer checker software. I usually do well on my papers when it comes to grammar, but my usage of the mechanics like commas, semi colons etc. is horrible. Does your grammar checker also check for these mistakes? I have grammar checker in Word and it dosen’t help at all with my puncuation. Can your software check my misuses of puncuation?
>
Our software does catch some obvious punctuation errors, but there is little that grammar checkers can do because punctuation is so closely tied with meaning. In other words, many times the comma or semicolon is not incorrect, it just means something other than you want it to mean.

If you have downloaded a trial copy of Grammar Slammer, please read the file entitled “What to Expect from Grammar Software.” That should give you an idea of what any grammar software can and cannot do. I jokingly tell people that because grammar includes the meaning, we will never be able to come up with a grammar checker that corrects all your grammar until they come up with software that can read your mind! If you have not downloaded a trial copy, you can also read this online at https://www.englishplus.com/news/readthis.htm . I think you will find this
helpful.

As it stands, we believe that our Grammar Slammer Deluxe with Checkers is the best tool because in addition to its checkers, it has over 900 “pages” of easy-to-use Windows help files with virtually all the grammar rules and problems you need to refer to.

Dear GB:

You wrote:
> I’m trying to use Grammar Slammer but having problems. The spell checker
work great but when I do grammar check it tell’s me the following.
>
> “Information
> This selection contaied 43 words and 4 sentences with 10.7 words per
sentence, 3.67 characters per word, and 1.23 syllables/word the grade level
readability is approximately 6.16.”
>
> How do I get it to correct the grammar?
>
That is the message that tells you that the grammar check is completed. If you received no other messages, that means that the grammar checker did not flag any errors. The check was completed. Some users find the information about the readability helpful.

Dear EM:

You wrote:
> I love your web site! I just discovered it yesterday and found a lot of great information, examples, and explanations for correct grammar usage. However, it doesn’t look like you have “Your vs. You’re” in your “Common
Mistakes and Tricky Choices” list.
>
> The incorrect use of these two words is very common, indeed. In fact, it was the incorrect use of “your” by more than one of our employees that drove me to volunteer to write a column that focuses on grammar for our employee
newsletter.
>
> Your website was very helpful in my research. Keep up the good work!
>
> Best regards,
>EM
> Assistant to City Administrator
>
Thank you for your encouraging note. Actually, we do have a page titled “Your, You’re, or Yore?” but it is not online. You can find it in any of our Grammar Slammer Deluxe programs, which includes over 500 more pages on words that are confused. You can find out more about that at
https://www.englishplus.com/gramslam.htm for Windows or
https://www.englishplus.com/gsother.htm for non-Windows systems.