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Subject:Re: Help: "Increment" as verb From:Kim Adams <kimadams -at- OZ -dot- NET> Date:Wed, 20 Dec 1995 22:18:21 GMT
from Connie E. Winch:
>I'm editing one of our manuals and have come across "increment" used as a
>verb. According to my American Heritage Dictionary, it's not a verb.
>However, I'm having a hard time thinking of a replacement. Any
>suggestions? It would be used in a sentence like this: "The software
>package automatically increments the transaction ID number after each
>entry."
Perhaps your verb trouble is really subject trouble? If "Trans ID" was the
subject, instead of "The software package," your sentence could read, "The
transaction ID is incremented after each entry."
If you keep "The software package" as the subject, you could use "advance"
as the verb, and "incrementally" to describe the verb. For example, "The
software advances the transaction ID, incrementally, after each entry."
Or you may want to rewrite the sentence from the standpoint of what this
incremental action provides. This could be a business or a DP reason.
Taking a wild guess here, but how about, "Incremental advancement of the
transaction ID after each entry provides unique record keys for relational
database queries."
