IF YOU FREQUENTLY Google language-related questions, whether out of interest or need, you've probably seen an advertisement for Grammarly, an automated grammar-checker. In ubiquitous YouTube spots Grammarly touts its ability not only to fix mistakes, but to improve style and polish too. Over more than a decade it has sprawled into many applications: it can check emails, phone messages or longer texts composed in Microsoft Word and Google Docs, among other formats. Does it achieve what it purports to? Sometimes. But sometimes Grammarly doesn't do what it should, and sometimes it even does what it shouldn't. These strengths and failings hint at the essence of language and the peculiarity of human intelligence, as opposed to the artificial sort as it stands today.
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