[Bananafish] Amusing

[Christopher Kubica]

I found this amusing. Yes, there is a Salinger angle.
Chris
        
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Rewriting masterpieces
Sunday, May 07, 2006
BY VICKI HYMAN
Star-Ledger Staff

The beginning of Charles Dickens' classic "A Tale of Two Cities" -- "It was
the best of times, it was the worst of times" -- is considered one of the
greatest opening lines in literature.

Microsoft's grammar checker considers it a run-on sentence.

Certainly text-checking software has saved many a writer from embarrassing
typos, repeated words, incorrect subject-verb agreement and passive voice.
It flags possible problems by performing a comprehensive analysis of the
text, focusing on the types of problems that are more frequent.

Feed it some Faulkner and it would probably implode.

Here's a sampling of the opening sentences of some of literature's greatest
works, followed by advice from Microsoft's automated language arbiters:

"Call me Ishmael." -- Herman Melville, "Moby Dick."

Flagged: Ishmael. Not in dictionary. Change to "Fishmeal."

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself
transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." -- Franz Kafka, "The
Metamorphosis"

Flagged: Gregor. Not in dictionary. Change to "Groggier."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of
a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. -- Jane Austen, "Pride and
Prejudice."

Flagged: Man. Gender-specific expression. Consider replacing with person,
human being or individual.

"A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned
hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was
assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily
timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne,
"The Scarlet Letter."

Flagged: Grey. Consider greys. Subjects and verbs must agree in person and
number.

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want
to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how
my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David
Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want
to know the truth." -- J.D. Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye"

Flagged: Entire sentence. Consider revising. Very long sentences can be
difficult to understand.

Sincerely,
 
Chris Kubica

President, Founder
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