Open vs Appear,Yet Again

[Kevin Amery]

True, it's not necessarily evil, but since "opens," "appears," and even
"displays" (as opposed to "is displayed") are such easy alternatives, I
don't see why you would want to go passive in this case. I don't think you
gain anything, at any rate.

   
Kevin Amery
Technical Writer, Research and Development

Open Text Corporation
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North York, ON. M2H 2W1
CANADA

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-----Original Message-----
From: Janice Gelb [mailto:janice.gelb at sun.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 5:47 PM
To: techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: Re: Open vs Appear,Yet Again

Kevin Amery wrote:
> 
> James Barrow wrote: 
> 
>> 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.
> 
 > The problem (to me at least) with "is displayed" is it's  > passive
voice. "Opens" or "appears" is active voice.
 >

In cases where the noun doing the action is clearly understood, passive
voice is not necessarily evil.
In this case, there is no confusion about what has displayed the dialog box.

We allow both "appears" and "is displayed" so if Jim wants to come work for
Sun, I promise I won't mark "is displayed" as incorrect :->

-- Janice

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