Re: Transitive Verb Question

["Ridder, Fred" <F -dot- Ridder -at- DIALOGIC -dot- COM>]

Nora Merhar wrote:
>This is how I've always handled it:
>(imagine a step/action table)
>Step    Action          System Response
>
>1.      Click OK        (The system) Displays the flimflam dialog box
>
>
>The first part of the sentence (the system) is assumed-IOW, not typed in.
>This has never caused any user confusion (that I know of, anyway!)
So what you're saying is that you prefer to use a sentence fragment with no
subject? I think the intransitive use of "displays" most likely stems from
an attempt to make this semantic usage at least _appear_ to be a sentence by
treating the object of the verb (the dialog box which is displayed) as if it
were the subject of the sentence. I find your proposed solution (if I
understand it correctly) to be particularly unappealing.
To me, this is still a situation where it is perfectly appropriate to use
the passive voice to emphasize the action (the dialog box being displayed)
rather than the doer of the action (which is understood to be "the system"
or "the application"). The proscription against passive voice is good advice
in conventional narrative, but I believe that it is very useful and
appropriate in technical writing of the software variety, since the doer of
the action is understood. And I think that typical readers are a whole lot
less likely to notice the occasional and appropriate use of passive voice
than they are to notice the unconventional or ungrammatical use of a common
verb. After all, even the professional tech writers on this list frequently
mis-identify passive voice in messages posted to the list.

Fred Ridder  (mailto:f -dot- ridder -at- dialogic -dot- com)
Senior Technical Writer
Dialogic Corporation, Parsippany, NJ

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