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Subject:RE: a question about verb tense/is or was? From:"Hager, Harry (US - East Brunswick)" <hhager -at- dc -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 22 Mar 2001 06:15:20 -0800
Steve,
I'm afraid I disagree. I may be wrong but it seems to me that if we this
logic, there is little need for the present tense in any user manual. In
your example, if the user cannot perform two events simultaneously, then
there seems to be no present, only the immediate past and the immediate
future.
I believe that when the user reads, it is present tense to the user; when
the user then clicks, it is present tense to the user; and when the user
then reads the resulting screen information, it is also present tense to the
user. A moving window of present tense. That's what present tense is, a
window on time. That window of time moves through time just like a window in
a software package moves through the procedures of the software or a window
moves through a Word document. I guess that's why Microsoft decided to call
it a window. (Did they invent the term?)
Sounds like a plot for a science fiction story.
Do ISO standards (ISO 9000?) really say that future tense is preferred for
software user manuals?
H. Jim Hager
hhager -at- dc -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
Subject: RE: a question about verb tense/is or was?
From: "Steve Hudson" <steve -at- wright -dot- com -dot- au>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:16:39 +1100
X-Message-Number: 56
I come from an ISO background, so ESPECIALLY in internal manuals, it is
always more correct to use the future tense.
Now, being a pedant with a software manual, the user cant read and click at
the same time, so technically speaking the wording should reflect the
immediate future - IMHO.
Steve
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