My Like-Hate Relationship With Word’s Grammar Checker

Abstract

Microsoft Word has a built-in grammar checker that can help you spot common grammatical errors, such as noun-verb disagreements, that you need to correct. However, Word’s grammar checker also makes many suggestions that you should ignore. For example, it systematically flags all uses of the passive voice, even when the passive voice is the right choice. Word also tells you that some sentence adverbs or conjunctive adverbial elements are expressing uncertainty, even when no uncertainty is being expressed. Word often flags short, common words of Anglo-Saxon origin—suggesting instead a big, fancy word that is harder to read or has a different meaning. I put up with this nonsense because Word occasionally makes a good suggestion that keeps me from looking stupid. In this article, I explain why I ignore most of Word’s grammatical advice. I also explain how I use other features of Word (the Read Aloud feature and some custom macros) to spot problems that no grammar checker can find.