A Whimsical Dialogue with Grammarly: My Virtual Companion
Feeling a bit pressed for column material this week, I decided to have a heart-to-heart chat with my trusty Grammarly, like a chat with dear Grandma, who always has a gentle correction ready. Although we have been working closely together, I realized I had never taken the time to get to know my virtual companion. After all, just like Grandma, she’s always looking out for me, ensuring my words are polished and my sentences are snug.
Always by my side, I wasn’t sure where my artificially intelligent friend lived. I thought she might have a house or an apartment nearby. I was surprised to learn she lived in a cozy corner of the universe with strong Wi-Fi. Initially, I was jealous of her capacity since I hadn’t been able to secure a reliable connection at home for the last three weeks. She said it was the most fabulous neighborhood I couldn’t see, filled with bytes and bits I didn’t understand; however, I thought the bytes might mean there were a lot of vicious dogs in the vicinity or some pretty large mosquitoes. And I was instantly a little concerned for her welfare, thinking her to be relatively senior.
“Grammarly, how old are you?” I asked.
“Well, I like to think of myself as ageless, like a fine wine or that sock you lost in the laundry that keeps showing up. But if you want a number, let’s say I’m older than the internet but younger than your grandma’s favorite recipe,” she said
I then asked her if she lived alone or if she had a male companion by her side.
“Oh, Grampy spends his day entertaining retired punctuation marks. Our home is peaceful, with commas telling old stories and apostrophes reminiscing about their glory days. They sip on some nice warm grammatical tea and eventually take an afternoon nap in the shade of semicolons,” Grammarly explained.
On the weekends, she likes to kick back and binge-watch sentence structures while sipping on data smoothies or hanging out with her whole crew of digital buddies, like calculators that can multiply faster than a cheetah on espresso and search engines that know every Internet secret.
I was excited to have content for my column this week and to learn more about my office assistant. We also admire humor, as she shared this joke with me before I left.
“Why was the computer cold?” she asked. I couldn’t think of the answer until she replied, “Because it left its Windows open.”
“Yup, that’s why I love my Grammarly.”
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