Open vs Appear,Yet Again (was: "RE: WG: Newbie question - GUI terminology")

[Kevin Amery]

The problem (to me at least) with "is displayed" is it's passive voice.
"Opens" or "appears" is active voice. 


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Kevin Amery
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-----Original Message-----
From: James Barrow [mailto:vrfour at verizon.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 8:47 AM
To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Open vs Appear,Yet Again (was: "RE: WG: Newbie question - GUI
terminology")

>Sam Beard wrote:
>>Andrew Warren wrote:
>>>Beth Agnew wrote:

>>>The dislike for "appear" is the same as for "invoke", or any other 
>>>term which implies some magical action on the part of the computer 
>>>user or the computer. .... Using magical language subtly contributed 
>>>to the impression that there was arcane knowledge about computers 
>>>that one needed to obtain.

>>I keep hearing this, but it never makes sense to me.

>>"Appear", as any dictionary will tell you, just means "become visible".
>>It's no more "magical" a word than "rabbit" or "hat".

>I tend to use "... the Whatever dialog box is displayed."


This is my style also, but as I posted earlier, I've had editors cringe at
this.  Whenever I've used 'displayed', my work has come back with more red
ink than the federal budget.

- Jim

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