NAME

diction,explain − print wordy sentences; thesaurus for diction

SYNOPSIS

diction [ −ml ] [ −mm ] [ −n ] [ −f pfile ] file ...
explain

DESCRIPTION

Diction finds all sentences in a document that contain phrases from a data base of bad or wordy diction.  Each phrase is bracketed with ∗[ and ]∗.  Because diction runs deroff before looking at the text, formatting header files should be included as part of the input. 

Explain is an interactive thesaurus for the phrases found by diction.  After running diction and obtaining a list of wordy phrases, you can then use explain to choose shorter forms. 

OPTIONS

−mlDeroff should skip lists. This option should be used if the document contains many lists of non-sentences. 

−mmUse the −mm macro package instead of the default −ms macro package. 

−nSuppress the default file. 

−f
Pfile contains a user-supplied pattern file to be used in addition to the default file. 

EXAMPLE

The example below illustrates using diction on this manual page.  Diction displays a phrase bracketed in the ∗[ and ]∗ characters.  We then use explain to ask what to substitute for the wordy phrase, and then ask for a few more interesting items:

gaia% diction diction.1
diction.1
In particular,  diction  doesn’t ∗[ know about ]∗ the   me  macro package.
 number of sentences 15 number of phrases found 1
gaia% explain
phrase?
know about
use "know" for "know about"
phrase?
send
use "notify" for "send a communication to"
phrase?
give
use "help" for "give assistance to"
use "indicate" for "give an indication of"
use "authorize" for "give authorization"
phrase?
^D
gaia%

SEE ALSO

deroff(1)

BUGS

Use of non-standard formatting macros may cause incorrect sentence breaks.  In particular, diction doesn’t know about the −me macro package. 

Sun System Release 1.0  —  3 June 1983