RE: Active verbs (was: Basic Voice)

[Alan Bucher <bucherino -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Watson Laughton wrote:
>Not to drift too far into the astral plane here, but the function
>doesn't really "do" anything by itself, other than just sit there.
>The user implements the function as a tool in order to carry out his
>or her bidding (i.e., it allows him or her to save changes).  "The
>function saves changes" may be concise, but I'm not sure it's
>entirely accurate.

True, but the point of concise writing is to eliminate the obvious
unnecessary text. When it's understood by everyone that the software
doesn't do anything (usually) without the user's action, there's no
reason to put "allows you to" in every single description. Just
clutters things up and states the obvious. I don't think someone
reading "the Print command prints your document" vs. "the Print
command lets you print your document" is going to have any trouble understanding.

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