h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can anyone tell me what 'Clause error. This appears to be a comma splice.' means? I keep getting this comment when I run grammar checks.

Can you give an example of a sentence that caused the problem? We'll tell you what is wrong with it.

You run Grammar checks? I won't use them on principle

Shameful isn't it .

Here are two examples (of many),

'It is present in other European countries, Morocco and Iceland, either having spread from the UK or having originated from birds imported to those countries.'

'The beech tree was not found in the UK before 600BC, the horse chestnut was introduced in the seventeenth century, it is difficult to imagine the country without either.'

MS Word doesn't object to the first sentence, but suggests a semi-colon instead of a comma after 'century' in the second sentence. This is because the final part of the sentence *could* stand on its own as a separate sentence, so it needs something stronger than a comma. I guess this is what your word processor means by 'comma splice'.

I'm not 100% happy with the way the first sentence reads. I assume that you mean that 'it' (whatever 'it' is) is found in Morocco and Iceland as well as other European countries.

A comma splice is when two or more independent clauses are run together in a single sentence by use of commas. It's not true of your first example, but it is true of the second:

The beech tree was not found in the UK before 600BC. The horse chestnut was introduced in the seventeenth century. It is difficult to imagine the country without either.

In the first sentence it's not entirely clear whether you consider Morocco and Iceland to be European countries or not, particularly as there's a degree of historical precedent in such confusion. Try prefixing them with 'such as' if you think they are, and 'as well as' if you think they're not.

Wazu,

I'll print of your sentences and take them home to my wife, who was an editor for a local printing company. She can rewrite the sentences and tell you what's wrong with them.

The grammar checker is not always right.

Mostly

How about...
'It is present in other European countries - Morocco and Iceland - either having spread from the UK or having originated from birds imported to those countries.'

Yeah, hang that head Wazu

'The grammar checker is not always right.

Mostly'

Quite.

Also, the spell checker is remarkable useless for the stuff I (mostly) write because it's technical science. Why is that 2,2-N,N-dimethylformamide for example isn't in MS Word's dictionary? If i want to spell check my work it usually involves pressing 'ignore' 99% of the time and of course that means you lose concentration and skip real spelling mistakes (it also means you miss spelling mistakes in techy words).

A good old fashioned hard copy and someone else to proof read it is still the way to go I reckon.

And on that techy subject...why is is that no-one else who shares this young Mac G4 will 'ADD' a word to a dictionary. We use lots of non-dictionary words all the time....and it would be SO much easier if everyone woud 'add'. Not that I'm bitter and twisted about this or anything.
And why can't the thing recognie between cases? AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGHHHH

Rant over

Sorry. this has nothing to do with the original query folks. But I had to ask...

My Mum used to work in an office with two different people who had english degrees and niether of them had heard of most of the things the grammer checkers came up with.

Your second sentence is actually three different sentences. replace commas with periods.

Grammar checkers are more or less useless in my opinion, because they're not people, so they're not suitably context-aware.

Therefore I don't use them. I don't use spell checkers much either, although I always spell check essays for University (which means I then have to skip through loads of LaTeX code...)

I avoid grammar checkers on general principle, because they're worse at grammar than I am. I refuse to accept help from something that gives horribly bad advice on a regular basis.

However, both of those sentences read badly. Mycroft has given the proper response for the second sentence. As for the first...

"'It is present in other European countries, Morocco and Iceland, either having spread from the UK or having originated from birds imported to those countries.'" - I get the feeling that the first two phrases are supposed to be a list of places where "it" can be found, and simply lack a comma. I may be wrong, however, since Iceland is usually considered a part of Europe. It's not mainland Europe, but hey... neither are the UK or Ireland. So anyway, it should read thusly:

"'It is present in other European countries, Morocco, and Iceland, either having spread from the UK or having originated from birds imported to those countries.'"

But the spell checker comes up with such wonderful suggestions. Like changing Geronimo into geranium. Sometimes they give a whole new slant to what you are writing. And the grammar check did throw up two sentences that needed to be corrected in some way. I will carry on using it but with a large pinch of salt, (and feeling guilty every time Orcus ).

It seems the consensus is that the grammar in the first sentence is ok although the meaning is confusing. I'll sort that out. Its meant to mean some other European countries (in addition to the ones mentioned earlier in the piece) and Morocco and Iceland as well. I'll have to decide whether to lump Iceland in with European or not.

On the second sentence, is it a question of style or is it plain bad grammar not to make independent clauses into separate sentences? I put all three parts together as they are all part of one train of thought. The grammar check has no comment on: 'The beech tree was not found in the UK before 600BC and the horse chestnut was introduced in the seventeenth century; it is difficult to imagine the country without either.'

I think I understand comma splices now and I'll watch out for them. Its obviously a habit of mine to throw lots of bits into one sentence. Thanks for all the answers, and I'd be interested to see what your wife suggests Mostly.

Colonel Sellers wrote:
'I refuse to accept help from something that gives horribly bad advice on a regular basis.'

Indeed. That's why I mostly ignore my boss Possible why those under me mostly ignore me too

Wazu, it is generally considered to be bad grammar to join two independent sentences together with a comma. This construction is called a "run-on sentence". If you have two sentences whose meaning is linked, use a semicolon to join them. Alternatively, considering keeping them as two separate sentences.

the only reason why i use grammer checkers is that they spot if you've spelt a word wrong but it spells a another pausible word etc

How about 'It is present in other European countries e.g. Morocco and Iceland, either having spread from the UK or having originated from birds imported to those countries.'

You could use those handy little words "and, but, or" etc. to join things up and make longer sentences!


Alji

I used to work for a company that made scales for retail and industry. I often came across the word 'meteorological' in documents. The author had used 'metrological', meaning relating to the science or system of weights and measures. The spell checker didn't recognise the word and suggested a change, which the author accepted without thinking.

Spell checkers can be useful and I always use one. However, if I disagree with the checker, I always check in a dictionary and / or add the word to the checker's dictionary. I agree that grammar checkers are of dubious value. I used one on my dissertation a few years ago, and only found it useful for picking up on passive sentences. (You're not supposed to have many of them in an academic work.)