From: utzoo!dciem!mmt
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Title: Re: diction and all that/which
Article-I.D.: dciem.210
Posted: Thu Mar 10 11:49:30 1983
Received: Thu Mar 10 12:08:16 1983
References: cornell.4085

It is true that the diction program provides many false alarms.
Its main benefit is that it gets the writer to think about whether
the writing is correct, and leads to better writing overall.
Different people will start with different hit rates, and if the
writer doesn't know enough English to know whether a "diction"
output is a hit or a false alarm, diction can't help. If a writer
starts with a diction hit rate of, say 20%, and understands why
the hits actually should be changed (use "suggest" to see what
alternatives there may be), then after a few tens of pages of writing
the hit rate will decline to 10% and then 5%, at which point
there is no further use for "diction". It is a training aid,
not a paper-corrector.

As for that/which, I started with diction without having any feel for
when to use one and when the other. Diction annoyed me with its
pedantic approach. But having used it for a while, and having had
a book copy-edited (most of my "which"s were changed), I now have
a good feel for their correct usage. It is a worth-while exercise.
		Martin Taylor