Foreword
This is a long blog (over 2,000 words) about Grammarly, an ‘English language writing-enhancement platform’ (Wikipedia’s description). The blog is probably of interest only to those who study English grammar and take care, and pride, in what they write—seeking to weed out solecisms, using the right word and verb tense, avoiding ambiguity, and generally following the accepted rules of English grammar. If this is not your thing, give this blog a miss!
When I write an e-mail, a blog, or a book, I pay attention to grammar. I use a dictionary; I respond to Microsoft Word’s alerts (the squiggly red and green lines underneath words); and I check things such as when to use that versus which, compare to versus compare with, and so on. I also have a personal checklist containing other things such as words I overuse (also, however, furthermore, …); unnecessary intensifiers (really, actually, totally, very, much,…); a misplaced only; possible homophones (their /there, compliment/complement, …); preferred spellings (okay rather than OK); direct speech punctuation; and so on—all mistakes I’ve made in the past and made a note of. I don’t catch all errors but I try, oh how I try!
Recently, I was made aware of a grammar-checking website called Grammarly. Grammarly offers a basic grammar-checking service for free plus an advanced service in return for a subscription. (More on the cost later.) I thought I would try it out, registered for the free service, and installed the Grammarly add-in for Word. The tool is easy to use and offers advice in several areas: spelling (including the use and abuse of hyphens), punctuation, verb tense and noun matching, British English versus American English (spelling and style), and several other types of checks. But, and it’s a big but, your knowledge of grammar needs to be at least reasonable before you start using and responding to Grammarly’s suggestions. Grammarly will not teach you about English grammar but does offer an explanation for an alleged error. Grammarly will help you find errors you either missed or were not aware of when you carried out your pre-Grammarly check. Here are some examples taken from the first drafts of a new book written by a friend of mine and sent to me with a request to proofread.
Spelling
| Original text | Grammarly’s suggestion | Comment |
| She had been in her mid fifties when… | mid fifties ⇒ mid-fifties | Add a hyphen. Agreed. |
| … into a field full of late wild flowers and seed heads. | wild flowers ⇒ wildflowers | One word, not two. |
| He was twenty two and had talked of… | twenty two ⇒ twenty-two | Add a hyphen. Agreed. |
| … at an infant’s school in her home town of Millhaven | home town ⇒ hometown | One word, not two. Infant’s school missed but see later. |
| … where he rented a small two roomed flat close to his work. | two roomed ⇒ two-roomed | Add a hyphen. Agreed. |
| … and pushed it through the letter box. | letter box ⇒ letterbox | One word, not two. |
| … and the children at the infants school where she worked were… | infants ⇒ infant’s | Just one infant? The accepted way of describing a school for infants is infant school, not infants’ school or infant’s school. |
| … and she sank slowly on to the sofa. | on to ⇒ onto | Preposition spelt incorrectly. |
| Hundred of children are being sent away… | Hundred ⇒ Hundreds | Indeed! |
| They entered through the open double doors and made for a desk on the right hand side where sat a middle aged woman in a grey two piece suit. | right hand ⇒ right-hand middle aged ⇒ middle-aged two piece ⇒ two-piece |
Yes, yes, and yes! |
Punctuation
| Original text | Grammarly’s suggestion | Comment |
| At the end of the Prime Minister’s broadcast Dorothy switched… | broadcast ⇒ broadcast, | Add a comma. Agreed. |
| The three of them had met, or rather had been thrown together, as the result… | met, ⇒ met | Delete a comma. I disagree. |
| They had been luckier than some and from the disaster a strong friendship had developed between them. | disaster ⇒ disaster, | Add a comma. I disagree. |
| It was a second marriage for both of them and… | a second ⇒ the second | Hmm. Debatable. |
| “It’s from Dorothy” she said. | Dorothy ⇒ Dorothy, | Missing comma inside closing speech mark. |
| … throwing the rug over the banister rail. | banister ⇒ bannister | Both spellings are acceptable. |
| During the first few weeks of the war there was a quiet and unnatural atmosphere in the town. | war ⇒ war, | Debatable. |
| “You’re home early love.” | home ⇒ home, | An incorrect suggestion. Better to place a comma after early. |
| “Well that gives you a bit more time to do your homework.” | Well ⇒ Well, | Agreed. |
| And why should these young people not grasp happiness while they could. | could. ⇒ could? | Agreed. |
Noun-Verb Mismatch
| Original text | Grammarly’s suggestion | Comment |
| A green and blue checked rug was slung over his shoulder. | was ⇒ were | Incorrect. |
| The evening sun cast a golden glow on thatched roofs,… | cast ⇒ casts | Past tense: cast Present tense: casts. Depends on context. |
| He had also arranged for an Anderson shelter to be delivered and he, Michael and Sally were faced with the task of… | were ⇒ was | Incorrect. |
| There was a new brightness and determination about her countenance. | was ⇒ were | No, no, no! |
British English versus American English
Note: Grammarly offers two dictionaries—British English and American English. I selected British English.
| Original text | Grammarly’s suggestion | Comment |
| Mr. Neville Chamberlain’s voice… | Mr. ⇒ Mr | Americans place a full stop after an abbreviated title. We don’t. |
| The realization that she was a part of this family… | realization ⇒ realisation | British English favours the -ise ending. |
Other Checks
| Original text | Grammarly’s suggestion | Comment |
| … and often talked of their plans for the future. | talked of ⇒ talked about | Preposition change. Debatable. |
| One of her plaits had come undone, … | Confused word: plaits ⇒ plants | A context check that, in this case, suggests the wrong word. Suggestion rejected. |
| “Anyway you have plenty of time for things like this.” | Confused preposition: for things ⇒ to things | Incorrect. |
| … had been told by the Ministry for War that,… | Ministry for ⇒ Ministry of | Well spotted by Grammarly. The Ministry was named the Ministry of War. |
| “What’s up Michael?” she asked. | Missing preposition: up ⇒ up to | Incorrect. |
| … would also be devastated with this news. | Confused preposition: devastated with ⇒ devastated by | Subtle, but a correct suggestion. |
| “Well, I have some news too Mum,” Michael began tentatively. | Possibly confused too and to. | Too (as well) is correct. |
| Michael and Amy sat very close together on the bus… | Adjective instead of adverb: close. The adjective close is modifying sat instead of a noun or pronoun. Use an adverb to modify a verb, adjective, or other adverb. | Agreed, sort of. I changed the sentence to read Michael and Amy sat closely together on the bus… although the Oxford dictionary defines close to be both an adjective and an adverb. |
| … and motioned towards a row of chairs facing the ornate carved fireplace,… | Adjective instead of adverb: ornate ⇒ ornately | Debatable. Ornate is an adjective but I changed the wording to read … ornately-carved fireplace |
| “Let’s go then,” he said, hesitantly, not feeling at all confidant about the whole state of affairs… | confidant ⇒ confident | A homophonic error. |
| Back in her bedroom, as she began dressing herself for her wedding, Amy… | Redundant reflexive pronoun: herself. | I deleted herself. |
When I’d finished looking at Grammarly’s suggestions for my friend’s manuscript (circa 15,500 words), I applied Grammarly to one of my books, already published (just under 88,000 words). Grammarly flagged up 854 critical issues and 1381 advanced issues. Gulp! The advanced issues are only visible if you pay to use the program. The critical issues are shown alongside the document however (see illustrative screen shot above) and I worked my way through them. Some issues were indeed errors on my part. Some were clearly not issues at all. And some issues were debatable. Here’s a sample of the more interesting suggestions Grammarly found in my book:
| Original text | Grammarly’s suggestion | Comment |
| … thus tempering my opinions and curbing my arrogance. | curbing ⇒ kerbing | Don’t agree. There is a verb to curb. |
| It (File Explorer) is the most essential tool for figuring out where to save… | most essential ⇒ an essential | A good suggestion. |
| Numerous examples of two words that should be one or hyphenated or dehyphenated. | pain killer ⇒ painkiller world-wide ⇒ worldwide high risk ⇒ high-risk any more ⇒ anymore over-paid ⇒ overpaid U turn ⇒ U-turn help line ⇒ helpline life style ⇒ lifestyle chain saw ⇒ chainsaw text books ⇒ textbooks under-whelming ⇒ underwhelming pipedream ⇒ pipe dream … and several other examples. |
I must consult my dictionary more often! |
| … or “Jezz, it’s time to blast off… | Jezz ⇒ Jeez | Mea culpa! |
| None of the reports go into the detail… | go ⇒ goes | This suggestion assumes none is singular. It can also be plural. |
| Then the three of us were placed around a small table… | around ⇒ on | No. We were seated at the table, not placed around or on it! |
| Our breaths were bated. | bated ⇒ dated | No. Our breaths were definitely bated. |
| The title to this blog is… | to ⇒ of | I agree with this change. |
| If so, you have become a smartphonolic (noun: a person addicted to their smartphone) and… | smartphonolic ⇒ smart phenolic | Smartphonolic is my invention. I’ve added it to my personal dictionary in Grammarly. |
| … to the real world populated with real people. | populated with ⇒ populated by | I agree. |
| To Oscar Pistorious, ex-sprinter… | Pistorious ⇒ Pistorius | Tut, tut. A bad mistake on my part. Sorry Oscar. |
| She’s too busy chasing down illusive Pokémon Go creatures. | illusive ⇒ elusive | A homophonic error; another bad mistake on my part! The two words are quite different in meaning. |
| You have not heard nothing yet technically means you… | have not heard nothing ⇒ have not heard anything | Exactly! |
| Plus, my wife will probably not agree to me taking an Ibizan sojourn! | agree to ⇒ agree with | No. In this context, my wife has to agree to my Ibizan sojourn, not with. |
| Königsberg, now renamed Kaliningrad, is a town on the Preger River in Russia. | Preger ⇒ Prager | No. The correct name for the river is Pragolya, Pragola, or Pregel so neither Grammarly nor I was correct. |
| … a healthy alternative to the more tasty fat-laden cheddar he loved,… | more tasty ⇒ tastier | Agreed. |
| Barbecues in the rain. | Barbecues ⇒ Barbeques | No. My Oxford dictionary points out ‘that the spelling is barbecue, not barbeque, a form which arises from the word’s pronunciation and from the informal abbreviations BBQ and Bar-B-Q. |
| … to “prove” that each of these entities are zero. | are ⇒ is | Mea culpa again! |
| But, I draw the line at saying “Bill and me went to the shops”. | me ⇒ I | Precisely! |
| There are no officially-sanctioned rules but there are a multitude of opinions on what constitutes correct usage,… | Second are ⇒ is i.e. …but there is a multitude of opinions… | We could argue all night on this one. Is multitude singular (the collective opinions) or plural (the individual opinions)? I probably meant the latter and accepted the suggested correction. |
Of the 854 critical issues, I responded positively to at least 100, maybe more, and learnt a very valuable lesson: I am fallible! Many of my mistakes were double-worded spelling mistakes—two words or one, with or without a hyphen—and with punctuation but punctuation is always a bit iffy. Would you add a comma after First in this sentence: First we open the book so that we can browse its contents? Would you delete the colon after are in this sentence: Examples of popular search engines are: Google, Yahoo, Bing, Ask.com, and so on? The answers depend on how you would say each sentence aloud, with or without a slight pause after First; with or without a major pause after are.
There were many other ‘errors’ I chose to ignore: suggestions I had used the wrong word (fire to replace ire, plants to replace plaits, started to replace startled,…); style issues (9 March 2017 instead of 9 March, 2017); and some very interesting suggestions for some French words I had used in one particular section of the book. But, overall, I gained a lot by subjecting my book to Grammarly and my conclusion is that the check is a useful adjunct to your own skills as a proofreader but requires you to have a good working knowledge of grammar in order to decide what to accept and what to ignore. If you blindly accept all Grammarly’s suggestions, you will finish up with gobbledegook!
Test your skills
In one of the tables above, I wrote: Michael and Amy sat very close together on the bus…
I changed the sentence to read Michael and Amy sat closely together on the bus… although the Oxford dictionary defines close to be both an adjective and an adverb.
I ran Grammarly on this comment and it suggested a change to one of the words. What is the change and would you accept it?
Footnote
Once a week, Grammarly now invites me to upgrade to the professional version of their service. Doing so will reveal the advanced issues. In round figures, the current (April 2017) cost for the professional version is $30/month or $60/quarterly or $140/annually. Ouch! It’s not cheap but if I earned my living as a writer, as opposed to writing for fun, I might consider paying the annual subscription. I am impressed with and suitably humbled by what Grammarly found in my book. Now I’m away to check my other ten books!
PS. See follow-up posting one day later.
(^_^)
Ben's Blogs, Books & Pix 
Sue and me agree, there are too many instances what people get wrong. Please let Sue and I know of any more wrong things we would be be best adviced to ignore.
Yours in good humour and thanks for the ongoing blogs
Mario
LikeLike
Me, I and myself would like to thank youse both for your contribution? You’re grammar are impeckable and I was really actually very much impressed with the saggicity of your observations. So was Grammarly: click here. Tanks!
LikeLike
Miss Buckman would “really, actually, totally” approve of this blog Ben. I always knew you were very pernickety regarding grammar but had no idea to what extent!!
The charts are interesting, e.g. however careful, we are all guilty regarding the “use and abuse of hyphens”. Apart from the obvious, most of Grammarly’s punctuation corrections were rubbish (IMHO) as were the noun/verb mismatches. I could go on but I concluded that, on the manuscript, most of errors requiring correction were simple solecisms which would probably be picked up by an alternative critical eye.
Regarding “Test Your Skills” I would delete ‘together’ as being superfluous as I reckon that if Michael and Amy sat closely on the bus then they would be together. I do not like the sentence anyway and my alternative version would be ‘Michael and Amy sat close together on the bus…’ (this, for no other reason that it sounds better!!)
Save yourself $30/ month Ben!
Mozz
LikeLike
I guess Michael and Amy could be sat closely on the bus, but not together, or they could be sat together on the bus, but not closely. Or, they could be sat closely together. They could also be sitting (as opposed to sat) closely (or not) together (or not) on the bus. Oh God, will it never end?
LikeLike
Pingback: Book Review: Dreyer’s English | Ben's Blogs, Books & Pix
I found this article very interesting.
I’m definitely not a fan of Grammarly. I stumbled across their website last year and was appalled with the low standard of English on their website. I used their utility to count the words to a popular novel, and was informed that the text had numerous “issues”. (The fact that these people call problems “issues” immediately rubs me up the wrong way.)
These people arrogantly set themselves up as some kind of grammar authority, yet, I find their articles to be badly-written, confusing, and quite course in style—not something any writer should wish to emulate, in my opinion.
The headings on their homepage are oddly capitalised, one of which made me laugh: “Finally, the Polish You Expect”. (I was expecting English, not Polish.)
I’m sure that Grammarly will be helpful for some people, but it’s definitely not for me. As a writer, I hate the idea of anyone else ‘correcting’ my work. My grammar may not always be perfect (I wouldn’t know, would I?) but I am happy with my ability to express myself and communicate ideas, which is really all that matters.
Then again, I think my grammar must be quite good, since I managed to spot every one of the (genuine) errors Grammarly picked up on above.
Many of their suggestions, however, were abysmal! Below I’d like to list seven cases where you don’t disagree with Grammarly, but I definitely do…
1. “During the first few weeks of the war there was a quiet and unnatural atmosphere in the town.”
I disagree with Grammarly about putting a comma after war. The opening clause isn’t just ‘setting the scene’, it’s an intrinsic part of the sentence which cannot be removed. For example, you wouldn’t write “Next Tuesday, is my birthday” because Tuesday is the whole point of what you’re saying.
2. “It was a second marriage for both of them and…”
I disagree that it should be changed to ‘the second marriage’. ‘A second marriage’ is fine, while ‘the second marriage’ could imply a single second marriage in a single series of marriages, when in fact there are two series and two second marriages.
3. “And why should these young people not grasp happiness while they could.”
I agree with Grammarly’s suggestion to add a question mark, but I’m surprised Grammarly didn’t see what I see here. I could be totally wrong about this—and I am seeing the sentence completely out of context—but my brain really has a problem with the words “these” (which suggests present tense) and “could” (which suggests past tense). I know nothing of the context, but if we assume that these people are no longer young, yet are being spoken of in the “literary present”, then I believe the word “could” should be “can”. But don’t quote me! 🙂
4. “… and often talked of their plans for the future.”
I strongly disagree with Grammarly’s suggestion here to change ‘talked of’ to ‘talked about’! To ‘talk of’ something normally suggests disclosing it to third parties, while ‘talk about’ normally suggests an internal dialogue.
In addition, I’d say that ‘talk of’ carries connotations that are more formal, focused, and harmonious (e.g. “the council is talking of providing wheelchair access”). While ‘talk about’ seems more informal, idle, directionless, and possibly contentious (“we were up all night talking about our relationship”).
Plus, Grammarly seems to have no consideration for how pleasing things sound. Poetically speaking, ‘about’ can be a far more awkward and grating word compared with the more flowing ‘of’. (On the matter of style, I would also replace the word “talked” with “spoke”, which I find more elegant.)
5. “… would also be devastated with this news.”
Grammarly suggested changing “with this news” to “by this news”, and you conceded. I totally disagree!
One would definitely say “I am shocked *by* this news”, since “shocked” is being used as a verb and the news is actually doing something to you—shocking you. However, one would not say “I am deeply unhappy by this news”. You’d say “I am deeply unhappy with this news” or “about this news”, because “unhappy” is being used as an adjective. It’s the same with ‘devastated’ which is an emotional response and, thus, an adjective.
6. “… and motioned towards a row of chairs facing the ornate carved fireplace,…”
I definitely don’t think ‘ornate’ needs to be changed to ‘ornately’. When I read it, I took it to be independent of the following word. If anything, I would simply have placed a comma after it, to clarify that it’s a list of adjectives.
7. “Back in her bedroom, as she began dressing herself for her wedding, Amy…”
Grammarly says the pronoun “herself” is redundant. I disagree. Theoretically, Amy could have been dressing a table, or zipping up her daughter’s dress. The word ‘herself’ makes it nice and clear, sparing the reader any ambiguity. The word “herself” is also evocative of independence, loneliness, isolation, or even sensuality. Every word choice carries connotations which reflect the picture the author wishes to paint. And then, there’s the context of the story: What if Amy’s best friend failed to turn up that day, leaving Amy to “dress herself”? The only possible objection I would have to “herself” is that it makes the sentence a little wordy; but that’s an entirely different issue.
Finally, there were a few places above where Grammarly (apparently) didn’t suggest adding commas but I’d say there need to be commas…
• “He had also arranged for an Anderson shelter to be delivered and he, Michael and Sally were faced with the task of…”
(after ‘delivered’)
• “Well, I have some news too Mum,” Michael began tentatively.
(before ‘Mum’)
• “Anyway you have plenty of time for things like this.”
(after ‘anyway’)
• “What’s up Michael?”
(before ‘Michael’.)
Final disclaimer: Before anyone starts poking fun at my own writing, the above was written informally, purely for fun. I haven’t checked it for errors as I would with formal writing!
LikeLike
Lee Bee, thank you for your comments. I have a few replies for your consideration.
First, I’m not so harsh as you in my criticism of websites such as Grammarly’s. They do fulfil a function in that they alert writers to possible grammatical errors but who is to say who is right or wrong? In your third paragraph, you wrote:
Followed by:
Since there is no authoritative body looking after the syntactic rules of the English language, anybody can set themself up as an authority; and many do, including you and me. This means that most of the rules of English language are more correctly called opinions and as we all know, opinions can vary widely even on the simplest of things. For more comment about this aspect of Grammarly, you might want to take a look at the follow-up to my blog above. I called it Grammarly, revisited
and posted it one day later.
Incidentally, I ran your third paragraph through Grammarly. It failed to pick up the course instead of coarse homophone but did draw attention to the degree adverb quite before it, stating ‘It appears that the article usage in the phrase quite course is incorrect. Consider making a change.’ The suggestion was to change from quite course to quite a course. No comment!
You then went on to comment on seven cases where you said I didn’t disagree with Grammarly, but you did. Here’s where I would like to set the record straight.
For Cases 1, 2, 4 and 6, my comment was ‘debatable’. That does not imply agreement.
For Case 3, you argued that the word ‘these’ implied the present tense that was then at odds with ‘could’ that implied the past tense. Since when could a past, present or future tense be implied by anything other than a verb? ‘These’ is the plural form of ‘this’ which, in turn can be an adverb, an adjective, a pronoun or a definite article but never a verb. I didn’t follow your logic.
Your elaborations on Case 5 were interesting.
First, I said the change from ‘with this news’ to ‘by this news’ was a subtle change but, in the end, I accepted the change. In the sentence under scrutiny, ‘with’ is a preposition. The word ‘by’ can also be a preposition (it can be other word types as well) and thus can be used to replace ‘with’. In the end, it comes down to style.
Following on, in the expression, ‘I am shocked by this news,’ you said shocked is being used as a verb. I disagree. The verb is ‘I am’; ‘shocked’ is an adjective. There is no verb ‘to be shocked’. If there was, there would be a whole new class of compound verbs front-ended by various forms of the verb ‘to be’ and back-ended by an adjective. I’m not aware of such a verb class.
In case 7, I deleted the reflexive pronoun ‘herself’ simply because it wasn’t needed. It was very clear from the context that Amy was dressing herself; not a table or her daughter.
As for the comma omissions, Grammarly didn’t remark on them but with the exception of your first example, I added them when I conducted a final copy edit on the text.
Ben
LikeLike
Oh, one more Grammarly error more I forgot to mention…
8. “Michael and Amy sat very close together on the bus…”
Grammarly claims that ‘close’ is incorrect because it’s being used as an adverb. You reluctantly agreed. But Grammarly is totally wrong here: ‘close’ isn’t being used as an adverb, it’s being used as a preposition.
This is a case of people seeing seeing adverbs where there aren’t any. A common example is how many Americans say “I feel badly about that” instead of “I feel bad about that”. The error they make is to assume ‘bad’ is being used adverbially, when it isn’t.
Getting back to Michael and Amy… Let’s imagine this couple sat down three feet apart from one another. You wouldn’t say “Michael and Amy sat three-feet-apartly”, you’d simply say “Michael and Amy sat three feet apart”. The distance between them isn’t the *manner* in which they were sitting (adverb), it’s the physical arrangement of their seating (preposition).
So now, if we exchange “two feet apart” for “very close together”, absolutely nothing changes.
(This is all my humble opinion. I’m no grammar expert.)
LikeLike
Arguable. In my revised sentence, ‘Michael and Amy sat closely together on the bus…’, ‘closely’ is an adverb qualifying the verb ‘sat’. It defines how they sat. ‘Closely’ in this context is not a preposition. If anything is a preposition (a word that expresses the relationship of a noun/pronoun with other words in the sentence), then ‘together’ is it but, in this case, ‘together’ is not needed. ‘Michael and Amy sat closely on the bus’, would suffice, as would ‘Michael and Amy sat together on the bus.’ ‘Closely together’ is a tautology.
I suspect that you, like me, spend hours wordsmithing sentences and even then, three days later, see yet a better way of structuring the words. It’s never ending!
LikeLike
Hi Ben and thanks for your reply.
Yes, I’m the same. When I’m writing something formally, I can (and do) spend hours rearranging sentences. It is never-ending, but I really enjoy it! 🙂
As for me writing “course” to mean “coarse”. That’s a habit of mine. My hands will often type a similar, more common word out of habit. For instance, just a moment ago, my hands wrote “knew” when the word I wanted was “new”! Other times, my hands will add a common suffix on that I didn’t want.
To clarify my feelings about Grammarly: I don’t object to anyone setting themselves up as authorities of grammar (that’s been going on for a long time). What I don’t like is Grammarly’s particular combination of a boastful and condescending tone, combined with aggressive and pushy marketing.
Based on everything I’ve seen, their grammar-correction service is pretty awful, especially for users with a poor grasp of the language. Grammarly also claim to help enhance “style and tone”, yet I find their style quite obnoxious. To me, this seems like a personal grooming company run by a tramp!
I looked at their webpage a few months ago and the main headline was: “Your writing, at its best”. This is neither a sentence nor a statement of fact. I can just about make some sense of it, but it’s vague, tenuous use of language and poor communication.
Other headlines included “Do Great Things” and “Get Your Fix”, which make even less sense to me. It just sounds like pretentious, silly, meaningless gibberish. And that’s just two headlines on their homepage.
The bottom line (which I probably didn’t make clear in my original comment) is that I see Grammarly is as little more than a scam, set up not by grammarians, but by chancers looking for a business opportunity. They’re disingenuous, too: repeatedly using the word “free” on their website while concealing the fact that they’re a commercial operation.
Anyway, for whatever reason, I just don’t like Grammarly’s tone. Everything about them seems slimy and gives me a bad feeling, and your article only confirmed this.
Finally, some responses to the cases you mentioned…
Case 3
I don’t think there’s a lot of point discussing this further when I don’t know the context of the sentence. Though I have to say that the words “while they could” sound distinctly past tense to me. I don’t think anyone would offer someone a sweet and say “Get it while you could”?
Case 5
You said there is no verb ‘to be shocked’. Perhaps you’re right. With the abolition of capital punishment, murderers are now merely being emotionally shocked by their sentences.
Case 8
This is a very interesting issue. I argued that “close together” wasn’t being used as an adverb.
I should say that my understanding of word types can be sketchy as I’ve never actually studied grammar. I have, now, looked up the definition of an adverb and found that it can include places (like ‘here’ in “sit here”). I did not realise the definition of an adverb was so broad!
To my (uneducated) mind, the word ‘here’ in ‘sit here’ seems no more an adverb than the word ‘dinner’ in ‘eat your dinner’. These objects have nothing to do with the manner in which the verb is carried out. You “go home”, rather than “going homewards” (or “going homely”. You tell someone to “get out”, not “get outwards”, and so on.
Nevertheless, taking into account my newly-acquired understanding of adjectives , Grammarly is correct, and you are too! 🙂
LikeLike
I have not visited Grammarly’s website since I registered in 2017 so I have not seen their latest exhortations. I don’t recall them being as aggressive as you say but a lot can happen in two years. I rarely use the website these days. I rely more on my own ability to catch and correct errors; that’s part of the fun and challenge of writing.
As for the eight cases, I think it’s time to say, ‘Enough said.’ We are at peace!
LikeLike
Pingback: ChatGPT: Further Investigation of its Literary Creativity | Ben's Blogs, Books & Pix