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

[Sankara R <ss_rajanala -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

There are pseudo-transitive verbs in the real world:
He trained for 3 months for the tournament.

[Perhaps with an implied "himself" in there.]

Or, 

The door opens inward.
[no implied reflexive here.]

The argument against 'displays' would be, as someone pointed out, that it is also used as a noun.
If the noun used can be avoided, the pseudo-transitive use should be ok.
 
    





----- Original Message ----
From: Janice Gelb <janice -dot- gelb -at- sun -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 5:46:52 AM
Subject: Re: Open vs Appear, Yet Again (was: "RE: WG: Newbie question - GUI terminology")

Jeff Cross wrote:
> 
> What about "displays" used as an intransitive verb, in place of
> "appears" or "opens"? (As in, "The Add Participant window displays.") 
> 

Not only do I agree with Susan about problems with
it as an intransitive verb, but we also avoid this
usage due to possible confusion because "display" is
commonly  also used as a noun. Localization isn't
happy when we use a word as both a verb and a noun.

As for "opens," I've been trying to pin down why it
bothers me and I haven't been able to come up with
a grammar-related explanation. Somehow, although I
have no problem with something like "Choosing
Print from the File menu opens the Print dialog
box," the phrase "The Print dialog box opens" seems
awkward to me.

-- Janice

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