NOTE: I have no idea if Jason Snell’s pieces on Macworld are looked at by an editor or not, but I needed a title for this post.
Jason Snell wrote:
Now, I’m not really bagging on Snell, he’s a fine writer (he’s been writing about Apple stuff for a hundred years or so and was editor of Macworld himself for a decade), and this is a common mistake. But as someone who didn’t write the article, it jumped out at me immediately, and I’d like to think the same would happen with an actual editor eyeballing it. In lieu of an actual editor, would a grammar checker flag this? Let’s find out by pasting in the quote and letting the checker I use in Firefox, LanguageTool, give it a look:
Quote:
I’ve heard this complaint from pundits, developers, and IT administrators, so it seems to span a wide swatch of Apple customers, especially Mac users. If the rumors are true and this fall’s next round of operating-system updates are largely focused on “quality of life” improvements, I think everyone in this group will feel relieved, not disappointed.
– Dan Moren, Macworld
And lo, LanguageTool only flagged “rumors” because it’s the American version.
The Hemingway editor also did not catch it (to be fair, this is kind of above Hemingway’s pay grade):
Grammarly also gives it a pass, but seems more impressed with the writing than Hemingway. There’s no pleasing that guy.
I’m starting to wonder if swatch is now considered an appropriate replacement for swath. My world is turned upside-down!
