Software to clean up writing?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Tom Murrell reports: <<... a story about a software program whose intent is
to help provide clear writing. I gotta wonder if it works.>>

I imagine it'll work every bit as well as a spell-checker. Given the number
of "owed to my spell checker" poems currently circulating on the 'net, you
can imagine how well it will work.

<<Maybe we'll be replaced by a computer.>>

It'll never happen. Among other things
[General protection fault in Geoff Hart autoresponder at address 0000AFFA.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail.] <g>

I don't doubt that within our lifetimes, we editors will be working a lot
harder to prove that we're better than the software. Just as we technical
writers spend our lives trying to prove that we can write better than
engineers. Fortunately, it's the programmers who can't write and can't edit
who will be creating the software. <g> More practically, I see lots of
writing tools coming along to help us do a better job of what we already do.
For instance, wouldn't it be nice to have the equivalent of a translation
memory system that lets us type "Open the File menu and select..." at a
single keystroke rather than laboriously retyping this phrase for every menu
command?

The key thing we'll have to remember as the software gets better can be seen
in the parable of the retired engineer, who upon being called in by a
desperate client to consult on a problem with an expensive, mission-critical
machine, fixed the problem by replacing a $0.25 washer--then submitted an
invoice $50,000.25 for services rendered. When asked to itemize his bill,
the engineer complied: "$0.25 for the washer, $50K for my expertise". Same
thing's going to happen in our profession(s). The simple stuff can be
automated; the tough stuff is going to require a human mind for a long while
yet to come.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone."--Bjarne Stronstrup (originator of C++ programming language)

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