KEEP CALM AND BE CONCISE |
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Like anyone else, every now and then I hear people use redundant words words or phrases. Hey, I do it myself sometimes, but am trying to do less of it.
So one day recently, thinking about ways to help with this issue, I came up with the idea for this program, called "Cut the crap!".
You feed it a redundant word or phrase, and if it "knows" it, it spits out the concise (unredundant? dundant? :-) version. Think a Strunk-and-White-like Python bot.
So, here's the Python code for cut_the_crap.py, an absolutely essential tool for writers. The phrases and words are hardcoded as of now, in this first version, but you can easily modify the program to read them from any persistent store (such as a file or database), along with the concise substitutes:
# cut_the_crap.py # Author: Vasudev Ram # Purpose: Given a redundant word or phrase, emits a concise synonym. # See Strunk and White, et al. from string import lower from random import randint d = { 'at this point in time': ['now', 'at present', 'at the moment', 'at this moment', 'currently', 'now', 'presently', 'right now'], 'absolutely complete': ['complete'], 'absolutely essential': ['essential', 'indispensable'], 'actual experience': ['past experience', 'experience'], 'as to whether': ['whether'], 'try out': ['try'] } def cut_the_crap(word): if word in d: words = d[word] i = randint(0, len(words) - 1) return words[i] else: return "" def get_the_word(): crap_word = raw_input("Enter your word (or type 'exit'): ") return crap_word def main(): word = get_the_word() while lower(word) != 'exit': right_word = cut_the_crap(word) if right_word != "": print "Cut the crap! Say:", right_word print word = get_the_word() print "Bye." if __name__ == '__main__': main()And here is a sample run, entering a few redundant words and phrases:
$ py cut_the_crap.py Enter your word (or type 'exit'): at this point in time Cut the crap! Say: at the moment Enter your word (or type 'exit'): at this point in time Cut the crap! Say: right now Enter your word (or type 'exit'): at this point in time Cut the crap! Say: now Enter your word (or type 'exit'): as to whether Cut the crap! Say: whether Enter your word (or type 'exit'): absolutely essential Cut the crap! Say: indispensable Enter your word (or type 'exit'): absolutely essential Cut the crap! Say: essential Enter your word (or type 'exit'): try out Cut the crap! Say: try Enter your word (or type 'exit'): exit Bye.- Enjoy.
- Vasudev Ram - Online Python training and programming
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