h a l f b a k e r yI like this idea, only I think it should be run by the government.
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A find function that targets verbs and searches by tense. This would be equipped with a "Replace All" button that would essentially be a Tense Converter. It would also allow editors and writers to check for varying tenses, e.g. in English papers, where you use the present to talk about literature but
the past to talk about its authors' lives.
Tense Converter
http://www.halfbake...a/Tense_20Converter
Related idea. [ickle me, Apr 22 2002]
[link]
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If you have a Tense Converter, you don't need a Tense Search. |
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Let me rephrase that: Unless you're mixing tenses, if you have a Tense Converter, you don't need a Tense Search. Even then, since you're working within a context, you'd be searching / converting section by section. |
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1) What would they have been talking about?
2) What would they have been doing if they would have been working? |
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I agree with phoenix--this is redundant with the Tense Converter. Every text search function I've seen doubles as a replace function, so it's logical that this would be the same. (Although as somebody noted, the search and replace algorithm would be a tad--just a *teeny teeny bit*--more difficult to write.) |
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I don't think I was clear about the Tense Converter. I meant you could use this *instead* of a Tense Converter. If you have a document written entirely in the past tense, a simple tense converter could convert it to a document entirely in present tense. With a Tense Search, you could manually go to every verb which is in the past tense -- if you slipped a few in accidentally, for instance. If your paper requires everything to be in the past tense except quotations, you could quickly run through the present tense verbs in it and make sure they're in quotes. If you wanted to convert all present tense verbs to past, as a Tense Converter would do, you simply run the Tense Search for present tense and use "Replace All." |
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This way you can still convert tenses, but you have more control over what is converted. You can also use it for checking that the tenses you want are right, without actually changing anything. |
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"They, who would have been the people of the United States, in order to have been forming a more perfect union, to have been establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing what would have been the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, would have been ordaining and establishing that Constitution for the United States of what would have been America." |
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{waugs} sincere applause. I wish I could do that, I get tongue tied. |
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When you dig through your purse at the checkout line looking for the checkbook that is actually sitting back at home on the kitchen counter. |
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"This way you can still convert tenses, but you have more control over what is converted. You can also use it for checking that the tenses you want are right, without actually changing anything."
What it #means# is that you #have to stop# at every verb, #read# the sentence it's in; #read# the preceding sentence (at least) and the following sentence (at least) #to gain# context; #decide# if a change is necessary; then #effect# the change (if necessary). |
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All because you're saying context (tense) cannot be extracted from the text itself (human intervention is required). By definition, every sentence has a verb. By definition, you'll be reading every sentence in your document - possibly more than once. |
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If your document is that screwed up, you might just as well start over. |
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