思考与写作matt.might.net
我的博士导师用 Bash 重写了他自己（2010）
My PhD advisor rewrote himself in bash (2010)
2010 — 2024，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇文章介绍 Matt Might 把博士导师反复给出的论文修改意见——检查被动语态、模糊措辞（weasel words）、重复词等——写成一组 shell 脚本，用来快速扫描英文文稿中的不良写作习惯。文中展示了脚本思路和用法，并提到有人受此启发开发了 Emacs 的 writegood 模式。
为什么经久不衰：它把“写作风格检查”变成几段可读、可改、可运行的小脚本，既实用又启发了后来的文风检查工具，因此跨越多年仍值得一看。
HN 评论精选
提醒已有 GNU diction/style 这类老工具可做类似的文风检查。
还有 GNU 的 diction 和 style 工具。Diction 和 style 是两个古老的 Unix 命令：diction 找出啰嗦和常见误用短语，style 分析句子长度等可读性指标。它们不能帮你组织文档，但能帮助避免糟糕措辞、比较文档可读性；支持英语和德语。示例中 diction 对一段文字标出了三处短语问题。
erlehmann_查看英文原文
There is also GNU style and GNU diction: https://www.gnu.org/software/diction/ ; cat <<EOF >/tmp/testfile Diction and style are two old standard Unix commands. Diction identifies wordy and commonly misused phrases. Style analyses surface characteristics of a document, including sentence length and other readability measures. These programs cannot help you structure a document well, but they can help to avoid poor wording and compare the readability (not the understandability!) of your documents with others. Both commands support English and German documents. EOF ; LANG=C diction --lang en --suggest /tmp/testfile /tmp/testfile:2: These programs cannot help you structure a document well, but [they -> (do not use as substitute for "each, each one, everybody, every one, anybody, any one, somebody, some one")] [can -> (do not confuse with "may")] help to avoid poor wording and [compare -> "Compare" to points out resemblances, "compare with" points out differences.] the readability (not the understandability!) of your documents with others. 3 phrases in 5 sentences found.
批评文章把 Strunk & White 的规则当成硬性错误，且概念不准确。
小学毕业后就不该再把 Strunk and White 当作文体指南。被动语态、副词以及他提到的其他东西本身都没有根本问题。他连 weasel words 的定义都没弄对（如“some people say”“it is believed”）。“very close match”并不比“close match”更主观，后者也并非精确定义。
empath75查看英文原文
Nobody should be using Strunk and White as a style guide after primary school. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with passive voice, or adverbs, or any of the other things that he mentions here. http://www.chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497 He doesn't even correctly identify what weasel words are. ("Some people say", "It is believed", etc). I'm not sure why 'very close match' is any more opinionated than 'close match' is. It's not as if the latter is precisely defined.
读者最兴奋的是可以直接使用的 Emacs writegood 模式。
我读完整篇文章都在想“这应该做成一个 Emacs mode！”，直到看到文末的包袱：Benjamin Beckwith 受这些脚本启发做了 writegood 模式。我现在就要把它加进 .emacs。
randomstring查看英文原文
I read the whole article thinking "this needs to be an emacs mode!" only to get to the punchline at the bottom. >> Benjamin Beckwith has contributed a "writegood" mode for emacs inspired by these scripts. This is going into my .emacs right now.
期待把这类文风检查集成进日常写作工具，并质疑误报问题。
Google Docs、Gmail 或 Atom 有类似东西吗？拼写检查都几十年了，自动语法和校对检查却还不常用，我很惊讶。比如邮件客户端标出过长句子、重复词、指代不清的“it”等，肯定能省校对时间，实现起来也不像那么难。常见 loose/lose 误用。很多语法检查器有误报，但技术没进步吗？
seanwilson查看英文原文
Is there anything like this for Google Docs, Gmail or Atom? We've had spellcheckers for decades but I find it really surprising that automated grammar and proofreading checkers aren't in common use yet. For example, having my email client highlight overly long sentences, duplicate words, ambiguous references (e.g. what noun does "it" refer to) and more would undoubtable save proofreading time and doesn't sounds that difficult to implement. I see online comments every few days of someone pointing out the word loose/lose is used incorrectly for instance. I recall that many grammar checkers suffer from false positives though but has the technology not advanced?
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