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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

#41

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

smcleod wrote: post #39
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of which, isn't it time to consider American English to be the standard one? Colour and licence are so quaint.

Well, only Americans use it. There's no point in arguing about it your version of a language is better or worse but for the rest of the world it's incredibly annoying having to correct Zs with Ss when using LLMs or American only software.

I'm actually Russian. The whole world uses American English, by virtue of US dominance in all important technical and cultural spheres.

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

#42

Post by physicsguy »

tossandthrow wrote: post #28
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 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.

You still need to adapt it to where you are though, people expect this because it causes misunderstandings. If I as a British person go to the US, I know that I can't ask people to go and buy some booze from the off-license and when finished ask them to put their aluminium can in the bin ready for the rubbish lorry while wearing their jumper because that sounds anachronistic.

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

#43

Post by richrichardsson »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #37
smcleod wrote: post #31

How well does it handle standard international English? So many of the tools I've seen seem to only support American English.

Speaking of which, isn't it time to consider American English to be the standard one? Colour and licence are so quaint.

I could care less about this attempt at trolling, but I won't.

We have enough American cultural hegemony as it is. It frustrates me no end that I regularly am unable[1] to configure software to use my preferred version of English.

[1] or it's extremely difficult. CLion I'm looking at you; every available option I have is set to British English, but still you insist on telling me my Colours should be corrected to Color etc. :(

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

#45

Post by smcleod »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #41
smcleod wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, only Americans use it. There's no point in arguing about it your version of a language is better or worse but for the rest of the world it's incredibly annoying having to correct Zs with Ss when using LLMs or American only software.

I'm actually Russian. The whole world uses American English, by virtue of US dominance in all important technical and cultural spheres.

"The only whole world uses American English" ... I think you might be living in a bubble. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

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

#46

Post by codesnik »

raegis wrote: post #38
Deukhoofd wrote: post #8

Does anyone know how this compares to other products in its field, such as LanguageTool and Harper? LanguageTool can be hosted locally, and Harper runs entirely as an extension, so I'm interested in how the spelling and grammar checks compare.

I just tested both on the text "Look Dick. See Jane. Jane run home. I says you go home to. They eats dinner." LanguageTool does what I would expect. Harper does not. However, both whine about two spaces after a period. Edit: Alas, Hacker News also removes the extra space after periods.

browser rendering does. You'd need white-space: pre-wrap rule to retain double spaces.

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

#48

Post by adastra22 »

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…

So you’re saying that for most English speakers it was correct, and that’s a problem?

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

#49

Post by adastra22 »

richrichardsson wrote: post #43
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of which, isn't it time to consider American English to be the standard one? Colour and licence are so quaint.

I could care less about this attempt at trolling, but I won't. We have enough American cultural hegemony as it is. It frustrates me no end that I regularly am unable[1] to configure software to use my preferred version of English. [1] or it's extremely difficult. CLion I'm looking at you; every available option I have is set to British English, but still you insist on telling me my Colours should be corrected to Colo…

English is a bastard language of French and Saxon. But we don’t get upset over that because Britain made the world English. Now the USA is making the world American. That ship has sailed.

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

#50

Post by dreamcompiler »

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…

So apparently the tool is slanted toward American English where the non-word practise is properly treated as a spelling error like colour.

If you use these words in writing for Americans and you are not a citizen of the British Commonwealth, you instantly mark yourself as arrogant.

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