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Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

refine.sh

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Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#101

Post by ygritte »

cjs_ac wrote: post #32
tossandthrow wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get this. > ... in 'full fat' English ... English is a bastard of a language and getting messier every day as new nations adopt it is their standard language. Setting the bar where it is well written and unambiguously understandable is IMHO completely fine for a 15$ product. Having a text spell checked to comply with contemporary Oxford English is likely not the goal of this product.

> English is a bastard of a language and getting messier every day as new nations adopt it is their standard language. I disagree strenuously with this idea, because it suggests that there is one 'big' English in which anything goes. A better idea is the one of the register [0]: there are many Englishes, many sets of rules. Different rules are used in different regions, by different groups of people, and have differe…

> there are many Englishes, many sets of rules.

Absolutely, but try to make a run-of-the-mill LLM understand this.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#102

Post by broken-kebab »

beAbU wrote: post #88
TeMPOraL wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds surprising. As an European, I thought that UK only thinks their English is the dominant one, because it's the one officially taught everywhere. Meanwhile, the reality is, people learn English primarily from Hollywood and MTV; music, video, television and computer games are both the primary exposure and the main reason for people to pick English up, and they're almost all in US English. Secondarily, comput…

Where is "here"?

I believe at least in all of Eastern Europe (including those guys who call themselves Central :wink:) US English dominates in pop culture, and business. I also used to work with a few Italians, and Portuguese and they all wrote US En too, so I suspect it's the same for them too.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#103

Post by rafram »

cjs_ac wrote: post #25

The screenshot shows the (corrected) example sentence: > Sometimes I still make mistakes with articles and prepositions, but my grammar is getting better every day I practice. In American/Simplified English, this is grammatically correct. However, in 'full fat' English, practice is a noun, whereas practise is a verb; e.g. : > I go to my practice to practise medicine. The problem I have with this website is that it's…

Describing American English as “simplified” English is textbook bad linguistics. It’s a different dialect, not an inherently simpler or more complex one.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#104

Post by reconnecting »

awestroke wrote: post #9
mirrormaster wrote: post #7

Isn't privacy a concern? How do consumers ensure that data is not going to captured in a future update without it being open source or having third party security audits?

That's a concern with all apps ever so idk what answer you're expecting

Disagreed. It's not concerned with all apps, because most commercial applications have legal entities explaining how they use collected data. In this particular case, this is something called 'Refine', and it's not a legal entity, therefore, questioning its data privacy approach is fully legitimate.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#105

Post by [deleted] »

rafram wrote: post #103
cjs_ac wrote: post #25

The screenshot shows the (corrected) example sentence: > Sometimes I still make mistakes with articles and prepositions, but my grammar is getting better every day I practice. In American/Simplified English, this is grammatically correct. However, in 'full fat' English, practice is a noun, whereas practise is a verb; e.g. : > I go to my practice to practise medicine. The problem I have with this website is that it's…

Describing American English as “simplified” English is textbook bad linguistics. It’s a different dialect, not an inherently simpler or more complex one.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#106

Post by cjs_ac »

johnisgood wrote: post #94
cjs_ac wrote: post #25

The screenshot shows the (corrected) example sentence: > Sometimes I still make mistakes with articles and prepositions, but my grammar is getting better every day I practice. In American/Simplified English, this is grammatically correct. However, in 'full fat' English, practice is a noun, whereas practise is a verb; e.g. : > I go to my practice to practise medicine. The problem I have with this website is that it's…

I thought the difference between practice vs. practise was that the latter is British. My spell checker (US English) does not like "practise" though, it is underlined with red. UK English, however, does not underline "practise" with red. So is it really not the case that "practice" is US English and "practise" is UK English? Because based on the spell checker, that seems to be the case.

> So is it really not the case that "practice" is US English and "practise" is UK English?

Correct: practice is a noun, and practise is a verb, in non-US English. I don't have my (twenty-volume) copy of the Oxford English Dictionary to hand, but Wiktionary has an explanation under 'usage notes': https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/practise

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#107

Post by broken-kebab »

dkga wrote: post #61
beAbU wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and you are not a citizen of the British Commonwealth What do you regard as the British Commonwealth, and what variant of English spelling to you expect people to use who are not part of this grouping? Just so that you know, in case you don't, "US English" is used just about exclusively in the US, and UK English is used in most of the rest of the world, despite the fact that most of our devices incorrectly default…

I work at an international organisation, and can confirm. My understanding is that is that at the international level, only the US-based international organisations use US English. To be sure, I don‘t have any dog in this fight, just highlighting a fact from my experience that many here might not know.

Not sure what is international level? If it's a kind of supranational organizations which mandate a particular version of English, I'm ready to believe that in EU it's UK En. But for commercial companies my experience is exactly opposite: it's mostly US En unless you're communicating with Brits, or someone from a country which inherited British education.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#108

Post by projektfu »

zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #71
projektfu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too mention that a jumper in the US is closer to a pinafore.

I'm American and have no idea what a pinafore or American jumper is. I know a jumper is a hoodie because I lived in Australia a while ago. But that's not a word I ever hear here.

It's like overalls with a skirt. In the 80s they were popular for girls.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#109

Post by reconnecting »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #12
awestroke wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a concern with all apps ever so idk what answer you're expecting

Except the open-source ones, or sandboxed[1] ones without any auto-update functionality (not sure if this app has any). [1] Loosely; I’d say not referencing any networking entrypoints or dlsym() also counts, as working around that would be very non-deniably malicious.

Perhaps this type of software could be either open-source with full code accessibility, or proprietary but from a highly trustworthy entity responsible for privacy both legally and reputationally. Currently, both approaches are missing.

Re: Show HN: Refine – A Local Alternative to Grammarly

#110

Post by reconnecting »

mirrormaster wrote: post #7

Isn't privacy a concern? How do consumers ensure that data is not going to captured in a future update without it being open source or having third party security audits?

I also strongly believe that it’s a primary question when we talk about keyboard input.
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