What is the best free spell, style and grammar checker for English?
Alas, the free ones are nice but not good. Ginger is perky, but middle of the road in catching grammar mistakes (I include contextual misspellings, because spelling checkers do not catch them; there are uncountable numbers of them). Ginger does not catch style mistakes like wordy phrases, redundancy, clichés, platitudes, jargon, informality, overworked and trite expressions, affected language, pompous phrases, empty intensifiers, awkward usage, slang, nonstandard and nonidiomatic diction, rash overstatements, tautologies, vague terms, outmoded diction, and potentially offensive language.Autocrit catches about as many grammar mistakes as Ginger does--about 12-14%--and about as many stylistic mistakes, as well. So depending on what you want, Autocrit can be up to twice as helpful as Ginger.Language Tool is free and catches up to 25% of the grammar mistakes in our limited tests (published at Grammar Checker Comparison Tests, but only a few style problems,Editminion is free, but its website is full of bad writing, so I wouldn't bother with it.Worth considering: Word and WordPerfect each catch around twice as many grammar mistakes as Ginger and Autocrit. Word also finds about as many style problems as Autocrit, but WordPerfect does not check style.The expensive checkers don't do much better than the free ones. Several, (plus Word and WordPerfect) catch 25%-30% of grammar mistakes; only two (none of the above) catch more than 20% of the style blunders.So the best, free or not, catch fewer than a third of common grammar mistakes and seldom more than a fifth of the style problems. Use them, by all means, but don't expect them to clean up your writing very well.
What are some good free online German grammar checkers?
I don’t know what you mean by grammar checker; you mean a tool where you can input a sentence, and it will tell you if it’s correct? That is very difficult to do for software, given the peculiarities of German grammar with its confusing adjective endings and complicated word order. I only have experience with Word’s German grammar checker of 10 years ago, and it was atrocious. Things may have improved since then, but I wouldn’t know since I have not tried again to use such tools.However, I can point you to a fairly okay online German grammar: German Grammar, Online Dictionary for Spelling, Inflection and Wordformation of the German LanguageAt first glance, the site looks as if it is avaible in English and in German, however, only the pages that give you an overview and link to the real content are in English in the English version. The rest is available only in German, I’m afraid.For questions relating to word usage and for an occasional native-speaker check of a sentence or two, there is http://dict.leo.org/ende/index_e..., which is first of all an online English-German/German-English dictionary (also available in other languages, such as French, Spanish, …) that is being completed by its users, much like Wiktionary, but better, more complete in my impression, and vastly better with regard to specialized technical vocabulary. It mainly caters to professional translators, and has been made with them in mind. The best thing: attached to the dictionary, there is a forum for translators, very nice professional people who will answer a question or two with a short response time. Just be sure to 1) put the question in the correct category (“Sprachlabor” is for grammar questions, “Land und Leute” is for cultural questions, “Deutsch gesucht” and “Englisch gesucht” is for vocabulary / difficult-to-translate sentences, but please furnish them with your own attempt at translation before asking them to answer), and please please be sure to 2) not overdo it; they are professional translators working for money, and they won’t spell-correct or grammar-correct a text that exceeds a few sentences for free. But be polite and considerate, and they will mostly be very nice to you (given that many of them are Germans, expect a few gruff responses, such as a short “I need more context” or some such; don’t be deterred).
When he walked this earth, what was Jesus called?
The Interpreter's Dictionary, Volume 3, page 505, tells us: There is an increasing tendency, especially in the 7th Century b.c. to use compound names which state a fact or express a wish... The most numerous are names compounded with 'YAH'... which number over 150 and are almost entirely personal or family names. The Name Yahshua is just such a compound Name. It is a combination of Yahweh's Name in a personal name (YAH: yod-heh) and SHUA (shin-ayin), which means salvation. The Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Brown, Driver, and Briggs, page 221, tells us that the Name Yahshua means Yahweh is salvation. The Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 7, page 680, further states this fact. The true pronunciation of the name YHWH was never lost. Several early Greek writers of the Christian Church testify that the name was pronounced "Yahweh". This is confirmed, at least for the vowel of the first syllable of the name, by the shorter form Yah, which is sometimes used in poetry (e.g., Ex. 15:2) and the -yahu or -yah that serves as the final syllable in very many Hebrew names. The correct transliteration of the Hebrew יהושע (yod-he-waw-shin-ayin) is Yahshua. Since the Messiah will "come in his Father's Name", then he must have the name of Yahweh, or at least the abbreviated form (Yah) in his spoken name.