Vasudev Ram: Cut the crap! An absolutely essential tool for writers

By Vasudev Ram

KEEP CALM AND BE CONCISE

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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