[jonstokes]

Calling someone from Manchester a "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" is not wrong, or even necessarily bad. Rather, it communicates something to the reader. Depending on the context, it could mean this person doesn't know that the correct term is "Mancunian", and did not look it up or even know that it should be looked up, all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level and the amount of effort they put into the piece and the amount of editing it underwent and so on. At the very least I can surmise that the writer is not a Mancunian. Or, it could mean that the writer is attempting to be clever.

Widespread use of proselint to correct this type of thing wouldn't improve writing. Rather, it would just add another interpretive option to the above range of scenarios, i.e. "ah, I can tell that this writer did or did not run that proselint tool before submission, because their text is or is not littered with boilerplate proselintisms."

The way to improve genuinely bad writing is not with rules and tools -- it's with lots of reading, a little mentorship, and lots and lots and lots of practice.

[amperser]

> Calling someone from Manchester a "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" is not wrong, or even necessarily bad. Rather, it communicates something to the reader. Depending on the context, it could mean this person doesn't know that the correct term is "Mancunian", and did not look it up or even know that it should be looked up, all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level and the amount of effort they put into the piece and the amount of editing it underwent and so on. At the very least I can surmise that the writer is not a Mancunian. Or, it could mean that the writer is attempting to be clever.

If the only goal of writing were to allow accurate assessment of the writer, then I would agree. But there are other reasons for writing — informing, persuading, clarifying, &c. — where writing clear, consistent, and idiomatic prose can help. Yours is a condemnation at all attempts to improve writing beyond the first-draft capabilities of the author.

> The way to improve genuinely bad writing is not with rules and tools -- it's with lots of reading, a little mentorship, and lots and lots and lots of practice.

Agreed, Proselint is not the right tool to improve genuinely bad writing. Reading great authors and sweating through drafts is what we'd recommend to get better at the craft, too.

[kbenson]

> all of which gives me useful info and context about the writer and their education level and the amount of effort they put into the piece and the amount of editing it underwent and so on.

From a reader centrist point of view, I can understand lamenting the loss of this information channel. From the author's stance, I can imagine wanting to tighten up alternate channels of information and present a clearer message. The author always has this ability, through natural circumstance, effort or research, so this tool would do nothing but make it easier. As a reader, it may change the assessment to whether they ran a proselint-like tool or not, but in the end those are just assumptions. The writer could be making specific choices to disregard the linting tool on purpose. In the end, reading is still an interpretive experience, this just allows authors more options.

> The way to improve genuinely bad writing is not with rules and tools -- it's with lots of reading, a little mentorship, and lots and lots and lots of practice.

Generally good advice for any thing, but I think it's worth noting that different people learn in different ways, and providing more methods for learning is generally an improvement, and opens the field to more people. Tools that look to circumvent historical methods for achieving skill often face an uphill battle from those that used those historical methods. It's easy to see why, as it looks like it has devalued much of the hard work they put into their skills. This may be true to an extent, but the gains often far outweigh this, as making a skill accessible to more people has wide ranging benefits for society in general.

In more concrete terms, I see no reason why a tool like this can't be a multiplier for mentorship and practice. At the very least it enables exposure to ideas that might not have been encountered before.

[ianstormtaylor]

Felt like someone should say this in this thread, but calling someone a "Manchesterian" offers no insight into anyone's education level, and I honestly don't even think it's something that we should be focusing corrections on. If anything, it would probably be nice if everyone started using "Manchesterian" instead of "Mancunian" because that seems a hell of a lot more clear to me ;)

To the library authors, Proselint looks very cool!