Re: the in captions?

[Reuven Frank <reuven -at- E-AND-C -dot- COM>]

No, in that case you would have to specify *which* file dialog box this is. For example:
"The green file dialog box."

And that is exactly the point here.
The definite article specifies that this is what you are looking at, and it is *unique* to the program (or whatever.)

When I send end-users to the figure displaying the Follow-up page. It's THE follow-up page, i.e.--the ONLY Follow-up Page. Conversely, when I am showing a dialog box (meaning, a specific TYPE of dialog box), it's: A "mini"-spreadsheet dialog box.

I am sorry that we seem to be beating this topic to death but it does have some ramifications to proper usage of articles, in general.

Thank you for bearing with me,
-Reuven Frank
reuven -at- e-and-c -dot- com

----------
From:   Tracy Boyington
Sent:   Tue, 14 Jul.98 15:24 PM
To:     TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject:        Re: the in captions?

> "The File dialog box" implies that there is just one, and this is it. "File
> dialog box" does not make that implication. Without the "the," this is just
> one of a class of objects called "File dialog box." There may only be one
> instance of the class, but we are still talking about a potentially larger
> group.

In that case, if you were referring to one of many file dialog boxes,
would your caption be "File dialog box" or "A file dialog box"?

Tracy
--
===========================================================
Tracy Boyington         mailto:tracy_boyington -at- okvotech -dot- org
Oklahoma Dept. of Vocational & Technical Education
Curriculum & Instructional Materials Center
Stillwater, Oklahoma    http://www.okvotech.org/cimc/
===========================================================

~~
Find TECHWR-L-related books at