TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Using OR as a verb From:John Kohl <sasjqk -at- SABLE -dot- UNX -dot- SAS -dot- COM> Date:Fri, 24 Apr 1998 14:59:29 GMT
In article <8156E4B6B988D111BE67080009EF91B00CDE9D -at- PIGEON>, Dave Neufeld
<Dave_Neufeld -at- SPECTRUMSIGNAL -dot- COM> writes:
|> How do you describe the of logically operators (such as OR and AND) in
|> documentation where the tendency is to use them as verbs. "Joe Audience"
|> is a specialized electrical or computer engineer working with DSP code.
|> For example:
|>
|> <begin example>
|> To enable channel 0 DMA transfers using the DMA done interrupt, the
|> pDmaModeFlags variable is built by a logical OR of the defined flags as
|> shown in the following piece of C/C++ source code.
|> DmaModeFlags = (PLX9060_DMA0MODE_LBURST_EN
|> | PLX9060_DMA0MODE_BTERM_EN
|> | PLX9060_DMA0MODE_RDY_EN
|> | PLX9060_DMA0MODE_LBUSWIDTH32
|> | PLX9060_DMA0MODE_DONE_INT_EN );
|> <end example>
David--
This will definitely pose a translation problem (if your doc is
being translated), because in most other languages you can't turn a
conjunction into a verb form like this. I don't know about your
particular context, but for software doc, dealing with logical
operators, I did the following:
Original version:
----------------
Alternatively, you can specify an expression with each value ORed or
ANDed with the current value. Values that are preceded with a plus sign
(+) are ORed with the current option value. Values that are preceded
with a minus sign have their complement ANDed with the
current option value, effectively "turning off" those bits. If the
first value is not preceded by a plus or minus sign, then its value
replaces the current value. For example, the following specification
sets the current value to 0, then ORs on the 1, 2, and 4 bits.
Revised version:
---------------
Alternatively, you can specify an expression in which each value is
expressed with the current value in an OR or AND logical operation. If a
value is preceded by a plus sign (+), then an OR operation is performed
on that value and the current option value. If a value is preceded by a
minus sign, then an AND operation is performed on the
complement of that value and the current option value, effectively
"turning off" those bits. If the first value is not preceded by a plus
or minus sign, then its value replaces the current value. For example,
the following specification sets the current value to 0. Then it
performs an OR operation on the 1, 2, and 4 bits.
