I’m thinking mainly in the context of automated ‘help’ dialogs in computer programs, but other sources of ostensible help are welcome. (I guess maybe not so much anecdotes about individual humans trying to help, because idiocy is pretty commonplace there)
Mine, today, was this:
I’ve created an Excel document on a network share, which I want to ‘share’ so that it can be updated by more than one person at a time. I clicked ‘Share’ and Excel ‘helpfully’ said:
In order to start doing that, you have to click OK, which dismisses the list of detailed instructions. IOW: commit these 7 sequenced, detailed actions to memory, then go ahead and do them in the right order.
I always end up using snipping tool to snapshot the dialog so I can step through the prescribed actions - but honestly, why isn’t this one of those things where it just changes the option for me, after confirming I’m sure?
The stupidest thing I’ve ever heard from an educated person was when I asked my dad’s wife what the difference between 1% milk and skim milk was and she said “1% milk is 1% and skim milk is skim.” Which didn’t help.
I’ve got an application I’ve been using since Windows XP - there’s no modern version of it, so I have it installed on Win10, but it doesn’t work perfectly. On opening a document, it displays a standard dialog box containing a yellow warning/exclamation triangle, but no title and no explanatory text. It does this twice, then opens the document.
Back when I was working as a sys admin for a large engineering/construction company I always hated the error messages that ended with “If problem persists contact your system administrator”. I would invariably yell back at it “That won’t help! He doesn’t know what’s wrong either!”
Has anything ever been solved using the troubleshooting guide in the back of a user manual?
I have one on my desk right now that says if the display is blank, make sure that the device is plugged in.
Windows Help has never, not a single time, solved a problem I had with Windows.
After asking foolish questions, such as “is the computer plugged in?”, you are asked “Has this solved the problem?”
There’s really no point in answering this honestly, no matter how many times you check “No”,
you’ll never get any closer to a real solution to the problem.
If I was writing such a program, I’d probably throw in something more meaningful like “An expected error has occurred. You knew it was coming right about now, at the worst possible time, didn’t you? Yeah, I had the same feeling. It’s always like that.”
This message is actually worse than “Unknown error”, which is maddening in its uselessness but merely admits to lazy programming or poor testing. “Unexpected error” adds insult to injury by stupidly feigning surprise, as if there were a whole class of errors that the program was fully expecting, but this one came at it totally out of the blue and it’s still in shock! “Unexpected” is either stupidly redundant or else is a stupid euphemism for “unknown”, depending on what the idiot programmer had in mind.
I agree with some of the other comments. I have yet to have any of Microsoft’s troubleshooting “wizards” actually troubleshoot anything, and if there’s an error that provides a link to Microsoft for “further details”, I have yet to get anything useful, or anything at all, actually, out of that.
And there’s something perverse about a horrible error popup that states that the entire program has crashed and all the data that you’ve spent the last two hours entering into it is lost, and the only option you can click on is “OK”. What if it’s totally NOT OK? What if this is a personal catastrophe that is the absolute furthest possible thing from OK? There should at least be a button that says “OMG, I’m totally fucked”. It doesn’t have to do anything different, but it would convey empathy. If a program is capable of genuine surprise (“An unexpected error has occurred”) it should also be capable of some decent empathy.
And Microsoft, please, what is this crap about “Please wait while the list is being populated”? What language is that? Does anyone over there who speaks English proofread this stuff? Maybe you meant to say “Please wait while the list is populated”. Or perhaps you meant “Please wait; the list is being populated”. But what you did say is not English as it’s actually spoken.
I have a program–an old one–that runs on my work computer, which is not connected to the Internet. Whenever I open this program to use it I get, first a screen that says an update is available (it’s not), and then one option: Install now? That is the only response. I have to click it. My computer then tries to get on the internet, which it’s not connected to, and then I get a screen saying, in essence, “that didn’t work because your computer is not connected, proceed anyway?” Again, there is only one option. And that, finally, takes me into the program.
There is no option for “never take me to this screen again I don’t want your nonexistent updates.” Why not?
First, Microsoft Help. When, for some reason, I can’t get internet access, it seems to me to be important whether I’ve been using the internet for years on this computer and a moment ago it stopped working, or on the other hand, I’m not sure what the internet is and have no idea whether this computer has ever been connected to it. Shouldn’t we start there?
Second, a local pizza shop. Do I want to order a small pizza or a large? Well, how big are they? A small pizza is 6 slices, a large pizza is 8 slices.
Third, the software I bought in whose user manual the root password is printed incorrectly. How does that not generate 100% customer support requests?
Fourth, the software I bought in whose printed paper instructions the phrase “click here” appears, underlined and blue. I tried clicking the paper but it just shuffled across the desktop. Actually, I complained about it years ago here on SDMB, and another Doper very helpfully explained that I’m supposed to be right clicking. That is the best advice I have ever received. Even though it didn’t work.
Alas, we’re talking about Microsoft and its ilk. The closest I could imagine to what you propose would simply be a second button labeled “WTF, NOT OK!”. And if you push it, the computer responds with a second popup “Too bad, it’s happening anyway. Suck it up.”
It’s exactly English as I speak it. Really, if you’re going to be pedantic, at least be correct.
This isn’t the first time that a casual throwaway comment of mine like that has elicited vicious pushback ;), so let me calm the waters slightly by saying that there are certainly pundits out there who will claim that Microsoft’s wording is correct, or at least not really wrong, and it does seem to be associated more with American English than with English elsewhere. And one might appeal to all the slavering descriptivists in the crowd by saying that it’s not even primarily about “correctness” in either case, but about what is preferred, if only for brevity and simplicity.
But in brief, my argument is this. The intrusion of the word “being” is at best completely superfluous, and at worst it’s an incorrect use of a participial phrase, which should typically have an adjectival (or sometimes adverbial) form like “When after half an hour the list was still being populated, he got tired of waiting.” The creation of the present progressive here with “being” is essential, as you can see what happens when you take it out – the meaning completely changes.
What’s wrong with the simple and clear (and technically more accurate, IMHO) “Please wait while the list is populated?” Is any meaning changed? Is any nuance lost? It would be better still to dump the passive voice and say “Please wait while Windows populates the list”, but that’s a different discussion.
Consider similar constructions in the transitive form. Would you say, “Please wait while I consult my manager” using the present tense, or the present progressive “please wait while I am consulting my manager” (which, if arguably correct, sounds like someone for whom English is not their first language)? Flipping to the intransitive, it’s the same logic: “please wait while my manager is consulted” (if one really must have the intransitive) vs. “please wait while my manager is being consulted” (again, sounds odd).
Yes. It has almost the opposite meaning. “Please wait while the list is populated” is saying that the list is already populated, and that you must wait until it is no longer populated.
Does “please wait while the bridge is raised” mean that you can safely cross once the bridge has finished the process of raising, or does it mean that you must wait until it’s no longer raised at all?
Back in the 1980s I had computer issues that regularly stumped Customer Support. I actually was told, “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.”
A couple of years before that, back in the days of dedicated word processors, we had a couple of administrative assistants who were so good that IBM actually paid to bring them in and tutor the IBM personnel.
Maybe it’s just my perspective as a boater, but “please wait while the bridge is raised” is something I’d fully expect to see from the water, not the road, and it would mean “we are raising the bridge for you, do not proceed until it’s fully raised and the light turns green”.
“Raised” and “populated” can be adjectives, or they can be verbs. But there are contexts, like this example, where they are very clearly verbs with no other possible interpretation. If you’re waiting to remove a program from “Add and Remove Programs” and are faced with an empty box and asked to “wait while the list is populated”, is there any possible doubt what it’s asking you? Would anyone think that the list is already populated and you’re waiting for it to become empty? Is there therefore any need for the same awkward ESL construction as “please wait while I am consulting my manager?” instead of “please wait while I consult …”?
