english question for sys message ?

[DanSteph]

I want to give a system message when someone perform an EVA
but I don't know the correct sentence

"Capt John performed an EVA"  (name + message)

"Capt John launched from vessel"

"Capt John is drunk and just falled outside"  (nhaa

It must be short enough to fit in the system message mfd
(eventually I can take two line)

Also I want a second message if another capt replace the first one
so is this correct ?

"Capt John doe performed an EVA"
"Capt Joe Cough take ship's command"

EDIT

Is this below correct it fit in the MFD without problem :

"Capt John Doe launched"
"Capt Joe Cough take command"

Dan

[Dave Grover]

Dan:

How about:

"Capt John Doe EVA"
"Capt Joe Cough takes command"

Correct English would be "takes" not "take".  The message could also be "Capt Joe Cough now in
command".

Grover

[canadave]

Alternatively:

"Capt John Doe on EVA"
"Capt Crunch now in command"

Dave

[DanSteph]

Thanks you Sir,

My english is a shame so I will not loose one occasion to learn something
why 'takeS' and not 'take' in this case ?

Dan

[Zamzara]

'Takes' is the present tense, therefore you add an 's' for the 3rd person singular. For past tense, you
could say 'took command'.

Also, note that if you say "John performed an EVA", that implies the EVA is finished and John is back.
If the message appears when John goes out, it should be "John is performing an EVA" or "John is on EVA"

[acehunter]

The most proper version would be "Captain Joe assumes command" (assuming standard military
or NASA, which follows many of the military forms) - that's being very pedantic, though - "takes" is
fine and is what is customarily used on the civilian side and frequently in the military as well.

Dan, in general, your English is very good, it's just some of the little items that trip you up (not
surprising, English is supposedly one of the most difficult languages for non-native speakers, and
even most of us natives screw it up a lot).  It is "takes" instead of "take" because the verb is in
present tense.  For example:

Captain Jones takes command (present tense)
Captain Jones would take command, if he knew how (conditional? tense)
Captain Jones has taken command before (past tense)
Captain Jones will take command (future tense)

If we have any English majors on the list, they will probably find a mistake I made in that
statement.

While we're on the subject, "Earth Scenary" in the scenarios list should normally be "Earth
Scenery".  Ditto for Mars.

I guarantee your English is better than my Spanish or my French.

[Leemon]

Hi Dan --

Since we're on the spelling/grammar topic...  

There's a spelling error on the antenna panel.  The text should read "Strength" instead
of "Strenght".

Also, on the HUD, it should be Altitude feet/miles, not feets/miles.

On the Display menu, capitalize the "C" in "7. Check vessel state".

Regarding that menu, should there be an alarm if the antenna isn't stowed before takeoff?  Not such a big deal I guess on planets/moons without an atmosphere...

Demanding, aren't I?

Thanks,

Lee



Post Edited (02-14-04 01:02)

[DanSteph]

Thanks all for the litle teaching, I'll try not to forget this.

so 3rd person take an S only for take or also for others verb ?
(or is it irregular or special case ?

Lee : noted

Dan

[canadave]

Well, Dan, you've opened a can of worms...you sure you want to learn more English?  It's really
hard....I should know, I happen to be in a professional writing program at university

Third person singular, present tense conjugations of verbs generally do end in "s" regularly.  For
instance:

He takes a walk.        ("to take")
Jane walks to the door.       ("to walk")
Joe feels sick.          ("to feel")
She works hard.    ("to work")
Jimmy wants to leave.    ("to want")


And then there are some that are spelled a bit strange for pronunciation purposes:

She touches the window.    ("to touch"); NOT "touchs"
Roger watches the game.   ("to watch); NOT "watchs"
Jimmy does laundry.       ("to do"); NOT "dos"



The verb "to be" in 3rd person singular present tense is....well, "is":

He is happy.


Note that 3rd person PLURAL present tense is usually spelled without the "s":

They take a walk.
They watch the game.
They work hard.
They touch the ground.


Now, if you start getting into 3rd person, past tense, all bets are off.  That can get weird.  For
instance:

They felt bad.    (past of "to feel")
He went home.    (past of "to go")
The bird flew away.     (past of "to fly")
Susan took a break.     (past of "to take")

If you're really interested in all the nuances, I could easily find you some websites that go into
great detail on the subject

canadave

[Dave Grover]

Dan:

This is certainly the proper smiley to use:  

Dave:

While you're at it, why don't you explain the difference between "through, though, rough, and
cough".  Dan these are pronounced "throo, tho, ruff, and coff".    

Grover

P.S.  Dan, the abreviation of feet is "ft", not "fts".



Post Edited (02-14-04 04:31)

[Arkalius]

Actually "Bob has taken command" is present perfect tense, where "Bob took command" is past
tense. There's all kinds of tenses... past perfect "Bob had taken command", future perfect "Bob will
have taken command", conditional perfect "Bob would have taken command", imperfect "Bob took
command (on a regular basis, back in the day, etc, indicates something that happened in general
in the past, instead of something that happened at a specific point in time). There are lots of other
tenses out there... fortunately English doesn't have a whole lot of verb conjugations like some
languages such as spanish. Each verb only has a few that you need to remember (ie for take, you
have take, takes, took, taken, taking) and then a few helper verbs (to be, and to have, ie is
taking, have taken).

Anyway, that all aside, your English is good enough Dan so that we know what you're saying, and
that's the most important part. However I understand your desire to make sure the text in the
DG3 is all gramatically correct

[DanSteph]

Well thanks a lot guy, the problem is that I write a lot but while no one
ever correct me (that would be boring also) my english doesn't evolve at all.
Now I just hope that my english is enough bad so people think immediately that
it's not my mother language instead of thinking that I'm illiterate

So if I understand :  "Joe writes some pages" is correct ?

See I learned something tonight

Dan

[canadave]

LOL correct, Dan!  "Joe writes some pages" is technically correct, although it's a bit of a strange-
sounding sentence, because in English, "pages" aren't things that people normally "write".  
People write "emails", "letters", "books", "reports", or "papers" (as in "academic papers"), but
they don't normally "write pages".  A page is the actual physical paper that something is written
on; but when we talk about what people write, we usually refer to the *type of writing*, not the
physical paper it's written on.  

There, is that confusing enough?  

But you are correct--"writes" is the 3rd person singular present tense of "to write", as in: "Joe
writes letters when he is not too busy."

Dave

p.s. GROVER:  If I started trying to explain all that stuff to Dan, *I'd* get confused!

[enricod]

Don't be scared by them, Dan, if you know French conjugation, you can tackle anything
Encore qu' il eusse fallût qu'ils eusssent étés exposés aux méandres sournois de la conjugaison française    
(edit: that was an example that would lose it's purpose by being translated, sorry non french speakers)



Post Edited (02-14-04 15:21)

[DanSteph]

"méandres sournois" c'est le terme poli

Dan

[acehunter]

canadave - it WOULD, however, be appropriate for an author to say:

I can't go to bed until I write a few more pages.
I wrote seven pages last night - Boy, am I tired!

Re: Spanish verb conjugation - oddly enough, I just had a discussion with my wife last night about
the fact that there are normally six different cases of each tense for Spanish verbs.  One of the
reasons why my Spanish is so bad.

[canadave]

Matt--quite correct.  Interesting, how the use of "writing pages" doesn't seem appropriate for a
particular tense (present) but is used in other tenses (as you used it!)  English is so strange
sometimes

Dave

[Dave Grover]

canadave wrote:

. . .  English is so strange  sometimes
>
> Dave

Yes, it certainly is!  This is because English doesn't follow its own rules, and you simply have to
remember when it doesn't.    

Grover

[bgreman]

Actually "Dan will have taken some time off before he finishes the code." quite an interesting
sentence.  

I don't know how they teach it in French classes in France (for little French children), but this is an
example of the future anterieur (or, in English, the anterior future), describing a future action that
will have taken place before some other future action.  English has just as many tenses as French,
it's just that English strips them all down and makes some of them SOUND or LOOK the same,
even if there is an obvious difference in meaning.

For example, we English speakers know there is a difference between "He is working" and "He
works".  In French, one verbal form describes both cases.  In English, the previous is the present
declarative, while the latter is the present perfect.

I've always been curious as to how English is taught in foreign countries.

(P.S.  Be glad that Dan isn't a Russian, or things would get a lot more complicated.  Russians have
to "worry" about not only gender and number for nouns and adjectives, verb tenses (there are
only three, but it gets a lot more complicated), verbal aspect, case for EVERYTHING (to describe
the role of the word in the sentence), mood (which we deal with using subjunctive tenses, they
use particulate words for), and oral intonation.  It's a mess.)

(P.P.S.  Dan, votre anglais n'est pas aussi mauvais que mon franc,ais.)