Coming in a bit late here, and am not really able to comment on the issues at hand with Word. But I do have some thoughts on the thread.

This discussion sort of draws an interesting parallel in my mind to music, since I am frankly better at writing music than words. Somebody like Dark, who is confident and experienced in writing, may not want something doing grammar checks. HE knows what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. Even if some rulebook says what he's doing isn't most accurate or whatever. Similarly, when I am creating music, I do not want some program editing my performance and moving notes to a more proper mathematically correct rhythm, or wanting to remove notes that are outside the scope of what classical theory would allow. After all, how can a computer possibly know what is wanted?

But let's take this in a different direction. I by no means consider myself a good writer. Average, perhaps. The reason I got good grades on college papers wasn't because I was a good writer, it was because I made good points and articulated them adequately. I was not writing doctoral works, nor did I take writing classes other than the core courses I was required to take. I did run spell check on absolutely everything I submitted, and equally proofread as much as I was able, but I often got criticized on mechanics. The criticisms were always vague too, such as "mechanics need work." Okay then. But I will be the first to admit that their criticisms are probably valid and warranted. Go ahead and criticize my mechanics on this post, I will try not to be offended.

While trying to educate myself on rules of English or improving my grammar would by all means be a good idea, I don't really know if it's worth it. Style, as Dark said, is more than a flat set of rules which can be shown to an algorithm. So, the conflict between when to follow or break conventional rules is always ongoing in my mind. In a musical context, I've considered classical rules to have gone out of date over a century ago so I do what feels right to me. But because I am not as confident in my writing abilities, I wouldn't mind trying a grammar-proofing  algorithm. I write kind of informally, at least in my word choice, because I am used to having things spoken to me, and I think that is a different mechanism than reading. When I did read braille all the time, I had the same problem. I just was never the type of person to separate written edicate from verbal, so if there are stupid simple things I do in my writing that just wouldn't be acceptable, and an algorithm correctly identifies some of the obvious ones, than more power to it, I'd say. In any case, I can summarize the practicality of any checking/correction tools in three simple words: Use as needed. To expand upon that, if you think you need it all the time, then the tool will not do you much good in the longrun, so be proficient enough in your abilities so that you only need the tool occasionally. If I had a grammar-checking tool, I would not rely on it. With that said though, it's always fun to use it a little too much and see how the result can become stilted if overcorrected.

I don't think that Word being set up to yell about grammar by default is an entirely bad idea, though I will admit it may have been wiser to be turned off by default. Nevertheless, I'd likely not notice such features unless they hit me in the face for a while and demonstrate their existence. This in turn forces me to learn how said features work for future reference. Not being satisfied with that, the program would continue to nag me until I am driven by insane agitation to go into the settings to turn the damn thing off. IN all seriousness though, I can see all sides and angles really to the usage of these tools.

I don't have agrammar checking tool at present, but it's something I've been thinking about playing with for a while, if for no other purpose than to abuse and play with, and not actually use practically. I remember when I was using Word 2003, I briefly saw its grammar checking in action, though I can't remember much about it. I also had a strange auto-summarize feature in my copy of Word, and that was a load of fun. Sometimes it seemed to actually work well, and sometimes not.

This thread has peaked my curiosity. What software exists that does more than just spell-checking for text? What kind of language parsing processes exist that at least intend to help improve or diagnose your writing in some way?

hi dark,
The language setting for the spellchecker in word is indeed document specific. However, try this. Open a document, then check the language of the spell checker. If it is US, change it, then tab to set as default.