"Fix the grammar" pasted into ChatGPT is probably the most-used grammar checker on earth right now. It works surprisingly often - so it is worth being precise about where it works and where it quietly fails, especially for technical text.
What It Does Well
- Availability: no new tool to learn; it is already open
- Context tolerance: it understands intent, so awkward phrasing gets smoothed, not just flagged
- Tone shifts: "make it professional" works in the same prompt
The Failure Modes
ChatGPT is a text generator, not a rules engine. Three consequences matter:
- Silent rewrites: the model may rephrase meaning, drop a caveat, or flip a negation. A grammar pass should change grammar, not claims.
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Code mangling: identifiers inside sentences get "fixed" -
userIdbecomes "user ID",Nonegets recased, command flags edited. The model will confidently rewrite a variable name. - Non-determinism: the same text can get different corrections on different runs, which makes editing workflows hard to trust and review.
How Dedicated Tools Differ
A purpose-built checker separates finding errors from rewriting text: it flags issues with explanations and leaves your wording (and code) alone. Lint's grammar checker is built on that principle - code identifiers are recognized and skipped by design, and a fix never silently changes what your sentence claims. For machine-sounding text that needs a human voice without touching structure, the dedicated tool is Naturalize, which preserves code blocks while humanizing prose.
A Reasonable Division of Labor
- ChatGPT: drafting and tone transformation, where rewriting is the point
- Dedicated checker: the final grammar pass on anything with technical claims, identifiers, or commands - review should be able to trust "grammar-only" edits
Try Lint's grammar checker - deterministic, code-aware, free 5 checks a day.
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