diction(1) — Commands
OSF
NAME
diction, explain − Prints wordy sentences and looks them up in an interactive thesaurus
SYNOPSIS
diction [-fpattern_file] [-k] [-ma] [-me] [-ml] [-ms] [-n] file ...
explain
The diction command finds all sentences in an English language document that contain phrases from a database of bad or wordy diction. The explain command is an interactive thesaurus for the English language phrases found by the diction command and only for those phrases.
FLAGS
-fpattern_file
Names a user-created pattern file to be used in addition to the default file.
-kPasses the -k flag to the deroff command. The -k flag keeps blocks of text specified nroff by requests or macros; for example, the .ne request.
-maPasses the -ma flag to deroff. The -ma flag interprets nroff man macros only.
-meOverrides the default nroff -ms macro package.
-mlCauses deroff to skip lists; should be used if a document contains many lists of nonsentences.
-mmOverrides the default nroff -ms macro package.
-nSuppresses use of the default file (used with -f). Only the user-created pattern file is used.
DESCRIPTION
Each phrase found by the diction command is enclosed in [ ] (brackets). Because diction runs deroff before looking at the text, include formatting header files as part of the input.
Before using the explain command, use the diction command to obtain a list of poorly worded phrases. When you use the explain command, the system prompts you for a phrase and responds with a grammatically acceptable alternative. You can continue typing phrases, or you can exit by pressing the End-of-File key sequence.
The explain command can also take input redirected from a file. No other command line arguments are valid.
Japanese Language Support
If Japanese Language Support is enabled on your system, this command is not available.
FILES
/usr/lbin/dict.dDefault pattern file.
/usr/lbin/explain.dThesaurus used by the explain command.
NOTES
Use of nonstandard formatting macros may cause incorrect sentence breaks. In particular, diction does not understand -me.