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RE: Basic Voice ??s: OK for Software to "allow", "let", "enable", --- "pr ovide" and so forth?
Subject:RE: Basic Voice ??s: OK for Software to "allow", "let", "enable", --- "pr ovide" and so forth? From:MList -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 13 Feb 2003 14:47:18 -0500
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jan Henning [mailto:henning -at- r-l -dot- de]
> Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2003 2:18 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: Re: Basic Voice ??s: OK for Software to "allow", "let",
> "enable", --- "pr ovide" and so forth?
>
>
>
> > "Enter the Pentagon database by entering the secret password."
> > "Enter the secret password to enter the Pentagon database."
> > "To enter the Pentagon database, enter the secret password."
> > are all shorter, more succinct, user-oriented ways to say the same
> > thing.
>
> True, and they are better suited to steps in a procedure.
> However, in a
> description of a feature or process (which I believe the original
> question was about), they don't work well. There, it is
> usually better
> to say something like "Entering the secret password lets you
> access the
> Pentagon database." Depending on the circumstances, still other
> expression might be better.
But... in procedural steps *or* in description and explanation,
is it still a really good idea to use a single word "enter"
in two different senses, in a single sentence.?
Enter = plug it in
Enter = haul yourself inside
What about the unpopular "input" (as verb) or "type in" or
(the occasionally problematic) "submit" or, from the title
of this thread, "present" (verb again)??
In some of my work, lately, I've taken to saying "present the
appropriate authentication", where "appropriate authentication"
can be a text-string typed in at a keyboard, or it can be a
device that supplies a cryptographic key or certificate.
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