Somebody teach MS English
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What colour is the dog?
Steve Thresher wrote:
What colour is the dog?
Who cares? Let's put it in the LHC...
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Let's see....the MS Installer displays the following during installation, "Program X is being installed." Sorry folks, in my English classes, all my teachers would have put a big red mark around that one. MS Communicator tells us politely, "Joe Smith is typing a message." Not a chance. Whomever writes these programs, please learn English above the second grade level.
Maybe you should grab your second grade level book and search for "Present Progressive" ;)
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ProgramX installing. Joe Smith types a message.
Hi Well, I believe this is wrong, and the messages in the installer and MS Communicator are correct. You're using present simple tense, which is used for habitual actions, whereas the messages you've marked as "wrong" are using present continuous tense, which is used for actions that are (not necessarily habitual but) taking place at the time the sentence is spoken (or written). If you're still reluctant to accept the correctness of these messages, I would suggest that you actually show them to your English teacher (making sure you describe the context in which these occur) and ask him/her whether they are correct or not. Regards, Yiannis
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Maybe you should grab your second grade level book and search for "Present Progressive" ;)
Well, technically there is no such thing as "proper" english. English is made up of at least 10 other languages and it's "rules" are not even close to being consistent. For every rule there is a page of exceptions. And schooling isn't actually standardised regardless of what you might have heard. Some schools are more advanced than others, some teach things differently etc. So both snippets are both technically correct and incorrect, just depends on what rules you are using.
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Tim Schwallie wrote:
"Program X is being installed."
:confused: Isn't that "passive voice"? What's wrong with that?
Tim Schwallie wrote:
"Joe Smith is typing a message."
:confused: Isn't that a gerund? What's wrong with that?
Stupidity is an International Association - Enrique Jardiel Poncela Die deutsche Sprache sollte sanft und ehrfurchtsvoll zu den toten Sprachen abgelegt werden, denn nur die Toten haben die Zeit, diese Sprache zu lernen. - Mark Twain
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
Tim Schwallie wrote: "Program X is being installed." Confused Isn't that "passive voice"? What's wrong with that?
Stylistically the passive voice should be used as infrequently as possible eg "The Computer is currently installing Program X" Of course this falls foul of OPs "To Be" rule
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yep give this guy a cookie. the screwy 'run' verb. he runs today -> he is running today he currently runs -> he is currently running what does he like to do? he runs. How does he run? he runs well. I is living in the US. ..bugga... I live in Chicago. Go Cubs! Go Soxs!
Tim Schwallie wrote:
I is living in the US.
Did you mean: I am living in US.
"In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
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Tim Schwallie wrote:
I is living in the US.
Did you mean: I am living in US.
"In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
Actually, he would write "I living in US." Don't want those tenses in there. :-D
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon
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A fun rant this has been. And now, everyone who sees these comments and Program is being installed... or Joe is writing a message. will have a little something in the back of their head say: "Damn you MS!!!! Damn you!!!!" or 'To be or not to be' what was Shakey really writing about? ;P
How has this been fun for you? The majority think you're wrong. :pointandlaughsmiley:
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Let's see....the MS Installer displays the following during installation, "Program X is being installed." Sorry folks, in my English classes, all my teachers would have put a big red mark around that one. MS Communicator tells us politely, "Joe Smith is typing a message." Not a chance. Whomever writes these programs, please learn English above the second grade level.
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Tim Schwallie wrote:
I is living in the US.
Did you mean: I am living in US.
"In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
yep... glad somebody caught that. am, is, are was were
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Actually, he would write "I living in US." Don't want those tenses in there. :-D
Cheetah. Ferret. Gonads. What more can I say? - Pete O'Hanlon
Richard Jones wrote:
Actually, he would write "I living in US."
:-D
"In the end it's a little boy expressing himself." Yanni
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How has this been fun for you? The majority think you're wrong. :pointandlaughsmiley:
Its a rant. Some took the approach of saying that what MS used falls under the correct grammatical category. It does. And a few understood the difference between using correct grammer at the second grade level vs grammer/phrasing understandable by the user. I only wished MS didn't use phrases like 'is being'. I didn't see many folks offering other options, ie the message during installation could have said, "Installing Program X" and the IM could have said, 'Hold on for Joe's new message' In any case, its always good to hear others thoughts.
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Its a rant. Some took the approach of saying that what MS used falls under the correct grammatical category. It does. And a few understood the difference between using correct grammer at the second grade level vs grammer/phrasing understandable by the user. I only wished MS didn't use phrases like 'is being'. I didn't see many folks offering other options, ie the message during installation could have said, "Installing Program X" and the IM could have said, 'Hold on for Joe's new message' In any case, its always good to hear others thoughts.
At what grade, should you have learned to spell the word grammar?
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Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
Tim Schwallie wrote: "Program X is being installed." Confused Isn't that "passive voice"? What's wrong with that?
Stylistically the passive voice should be used as infrequently as possible eg "The Computer is currently installing Program X" Of course this falls foul of OPs "To Be" rule
Russell Jones wrote:
Stylistically the passive voice should be used as infrequently as possible
Oh, I see. It is not the same in Spanish, where passive voice is encouraged whenever the grammatical subject is not needed because of the context. In Spanish, for the example above, it is preferred the passive voice since it is quite obvious that it is the computer which is installing the program (everything is done by the computer) and thus the subject is not needed. Another thing learned... I mean, I learned another thing. :cool:
Stupidity is an International Association - Enrique Jardiel Poncela Die deutsche Sprache sollte sanft und ehrfurchtsvoll zu den toten Sprachen abgelegt werden, denn nur die Toten haben die Zeit, diese Sprache zu lernen. - Mark Twain
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Let's see....the MS Installer displays the following during installation, "Program X is being installed." Sorry folks, in my English classes, all my teachers would have put a big red mark around that one. MS Communicator tells us politely, "Joe Smith is typing a message." Not a chance. Whomever writes these programs, please learn English above the second grade level.
Two last points to add to the dogpile. Even in countries that a localized version of windows is available, a significant fraction of the population uses the English version even if their language skills are limited. Also, while your two examples don't look like they fall into this catagory, often minor stylistic oddness (eg "Files deleted: 3" vs "Deleted 3 files") is to make internationalization easier by allowing a string to be swapped rather than having to implement logic for special cases in tenses (not all languages only have one/many plurality options), genders, etc.
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall
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and I take it you still write Joey is running like a moron. Yes, the sentence is technically correct. Though, I learned in the age where 'to-be' verb usage faced a docking in points on papers. And so the usage of 'to-be' verbs became instilled as an indicator for a lack of intelligence in the minds of many. Since you like baseball, I just moved to first base cause the first base umpire called a balk.
Tim Schwallie wrote:
Joey is running like a moron.
And when he stops running like a moron, what do we call it? Joey was running like a moron, and indeed Joey was running like a moron. Soon Joey will start to run like a moron again. This is a place for coders and even if C++ is full of quirks, proper English is too much to comprehend given the amount of spam we have to contend with.
Ninja (the Nerd)
Confused? You will be... -
yep....nothing wrong with it. I just hate 'to-be' verbs used so loosely. Regarding "Whomever",,,,always mess that one up...so I let the fingers type what they feel like. "Whomever...Whoever...Whatever..." :) now where's the spell checker?
The spell checker will pick up on his typo of Engslih or whatever he put. It will not get anal about his use of verbs "Fragment (consider revising?)" doesn't cover that I don't think. "I just hate 'to-be' verbs used so loosely." I hate Google, Apple, mostly due to the fact there are nothing but fanboys to the world-domination cause but I have to learn to live with it. Iz happy to post in lulspk if it maeks it teh funny :D
Ninja (the Nerd)
Confused? You will be... -
Tim Schwallie wrote:
"Program X is being installed."
Umm theres nothing wrong with that phrase...
Mark Brock "We're definitely not going to make a G or a PG version of this. It's not PillowfightCraft." -- Chris Metzen Click here to view my blog
There would be if it said "Program X cannot be installed."
Ninja (the Nerd)
Confused? You will be...