Re: Program to count word-repetitions?

[Carl Distefano CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from Eric Van Tassel <101233.342@xxxxxxxx> Thu,
8 Jan 98 12:52:59 +0000

-> ...When I saw first proofs of the article, each place where I had
-> re-used the same word was flagged, with a code indicating the
-> number of times that word had been used.
->
-> Does anyone know how it's done? Is there an XPL routine I can
-> use, or adapt, to perform this function?

Eric:

SmartSet includes a utility called REPEAT.PM, which checks for
recurring words. (I've made a rudimentary effort to trap
grammatical variants, which works pretty well as far as it goes.
It'll flag, e.g., "grammar" near "grammatical", but not "find" near
"found".)

You simply run REPEAT.PM with the file to be checked in the current
window. It returns a list of each repeated word and the number of
words to the next occurrence. A nice feature is that the
intervening text is quoted, so you can decide at a glance whether
revision is in order.

Another program you should know about is Robert Holmgren's REDUND.PM
(a/k/a REDUNDIM.PM), which enables an immediate redundancy check for
any DeFined word or phrase. It nicely complements REPEAT, in that
while REPEAT only finds repetitions that occur in proximity, REDUND
will flag *any* repetition, distant or close. It can save the
embarrassment of trotting out a fancy word twice in the same piece.
(Use "rebarbative" once and you're erudite; use it twice, and you
rub people the wrong way.)

Both programs can be downloaded from XyWWWeb.

--------------
Carl Distefano
CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/