[OS X TeX] Grammar checker [OT]

[Herbert Schulz]

On Dec 2, 2008, at 11:47 AM, David Derbes wrote:

> I can tell you about the "Chicago Manual of Style". It's quite a  
> story.
>
> The University of Chicago used to have a woman, Kate Turabian IIRC,  
> in charge of receiving Ph.D. dissertations. She was an unbelievable  
> stickler for thesis style, to the point that grad students beginning  
> on their thesis would be told to visit her office so that they could  
> pick up from her a list of approved typists. Failure to follow the  
> rules EXACTLY would result in the thesis being rejected, never mind  
> its content. (She would measure the margins with a very fine ruler.  
> If you were off by as much as a 32nd of an inch, you would have to  
> have it retyped!) And God help you if you got the citation style  
> wrong.
>
> Anyway, at some point Dr. Turabian just wrote the book on style.  
> And, presto, was born the Chicago Manual of Style.
>
> Non-Americans may want to know about a famous "little book" by E. B.  
> White and Robert Strunk called "A Manual of Style", often referred  
> to as "Strunk and White". This is now very old fashioned but still  
> worth a look.
>
> David Derbes
> U of Chicago Laboratory School


Howdy,

Ah yes... I remember going through that procedure with my thesis at  
the University of Chicago. It also cost $0.50/page to get it typed and  
any typos (it was in Physics so lots of equations) would have to be re- 
typed. Don't remember how much I spent to get the final copy but I'm  
sure I didn't care at that point. The days before word processors,  
personal computers, etc. Did all my data analysis on a combination of  
batch mode with lots of tape and cards on an IBM 360 and, glory be, a  
mini-computer (don't remember if it was a tiny PDP or something else)  
which had a paper tape reader (for the boot), card reader (for  
programs), tape derives (for data) and TTY for output and manual input.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)