I hate autocorrect (who doesn't?), especially when dealing with words the computer doesn't recognize (I can't imagine trying to right a lab report for Organic Chemistry in this day and age!), but perhaps the thing that drives me the most crazy is when it thinks it knows what you are trying to say and automatically changes it or even fills in the word for you so you might not even realize you're not saying what you wanted to say. That being said, I thought I'd try out Grammarly, the apparently amazing grammar checker I've seen advertised everywhere. I'm by no means a grammar expert so I thought it would be interesting to see what the computer thought of my writing. It wasn't happy. Perhaps the paid service ($11/month) is better, but I was not impressed with the freebie version. Of the sample I gave it to check, it found over a hundred errors, but only about 3% of those were actual errors, the rest were words it didn't like or recognize or it didn't like my 'creative' use of the English language. The thing has no sense of humor, not unexpected in a computer, how do you explain 'poetic license' to a thing that is programmed to obey the rules and only the rules?
Overall, the program will be helpful to those whose first language is text lingo, those learning proper grammar, or those learning English, but if you've survived a few English classes, read good books on occasion, and write a fair amount, it will probably be more nuisance than asset, much like autocorrect. Of course you should take this with a grain of salt, as I'm one of those annoying people that thinks language is an art, not a science: you learn the rules so you can occasionally bend, if not break them. I wonder what it would think of one of my old lab reports...too bad they're all on floppy disks!
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