atw: Re: What do dialog boxes do?

I use 'is displayed'. Short, simple, to the point. Usually it's bleeding obvious which program is causing the dialog to be displayed. I'm not fond of 'appears' because it sounds a little... well, random! 'Is displayed' sounds more deliberate.

- Naomi

Howard.Silcock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Someone asked me recently whether I thought we should say 'a dialog box displays', 'a dialog box is displayed', or something else. I told her what I thought, but I'd be interested to see what terminology others on this list use.

I said I objected to 'a dialog box displays', because if you look in a dictionary you'll see that 'display' is shown as 'verb (t)' [Macquarie Online], meaning that it's a *transitive* verb. (If you're not familiar with this terminology, a transitive verb is one that must have a direct object. An example is the verb 'hit': you can't just say 'I hit', because you have to hit SOMETHING. ) So a dialog box can only display SOMETHING. I suppose you could say 'a dialog box displays itself', but that sounds too weird to me.

Therefore, if you want to use 'display', it'd have to be 'a dialog box is displayed' or maybe 'Windows [or <application name>] displays a dialog box'. However, I tend to favour 'a dialog box appears'. Another option might be 'you see a dialog box'.

Anyone have any other suggestions? 
**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"subscribe" in the Subject field.

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts: