The surprisingly subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

[ChrisGreaves]

BBC Future
Pros and Cons of MSWord's dominance.
Cheers, Chris

[RonH]

The power of the Word ...

[PJ_in_FL]

Not to worry, but the next generation will let AI do its writing and start the slide into the technical idiots H. G. Wells envisioned for the future of mankind. It'll just be here much sooner than the 800,000 years the traveler went to meet those lost souls.

[ChrisGreaves]

The power of the Word ...

Yes indeed. Ron, you more than most people are probably aware of the grating influence of MSWord (and its like) where we wrestle with the spelling we were raised with and the spelling we are herded to by an inflexible dictionary. I hated being coerced into Americanisms ("Americanism" most likely BEING an Americanism), but, perhaps old age, and coming around to the view that a standardised standardized form of English might not be a good idea.
The data-gathering part of me thinks that a mountain of text that can be searched without complex rules adjusting to dialects might, after all, be a Good Thing.

Cheers, Chris

[ChrisGreaves]

Not to worry, but the next generation will let AI do its writing and start the slide into the technical idiots H. G. Wells envisioned for the future of mankind. It'll just be here much sooner than the 800,000 years the traveler went to meet those lost souls.

Not to worry, PJ.
As long as there remains a pool of talented computer-programmers who insist on developing code script with paper-and-pencil. writing will not die out.
Only when good programmers fall by the way-side do we need to start worrying, and by then it will be too late!
Cheers, Chris

[stuck]

...
As long as there remains a pool of talented computer-programmers who insist on developing code script with paper-and-pencil. writing will not die out...

Apart from yourself, are there any such people still alive?

I was never aware of any of the talented coders who I worked with in the last 20 years of my working life developing code using paper and pencil.

Ken

[GeoffW]

Well, there was the mathematician with constipation who worked it out with a pencil.

[ChrisGreaves]

Well, there was the mathematician with constipation who worked it out with a pencil.

Logs, Geoff. LOGS!
Cheers, Chris