[Grammar] Continuous form

[enthink]

Hello,

If you are a native English speaker, what differences come to your mind when you compare those two sentences taken from a computer program presumably written by native speakers? What are the rules, as to preferring one of them, connotations, etc.


Please wait while the wizard searches...

Please wait while the wizard is searching...

Thanks!

 

[apex2000]

They convey the same message, just a matter of choice which one to use.

 

[Lorenzo66]

Most specifically, searches is a simple present tense which conveys no more information than that the computer performs an operation without any more specificity.

On the other hand, is searching conveys a sense of continuity and the tense is most specifically the present progressive or the present continuous, the former being the term taken from the Latin paradigm.

FYI
was (were) searching would be the past progressive
will be searching is the future progressive
has (have) been searching is the present perfect progressive
had been searching is the past perfect progressive
will be searching is the future progressive
will have been searching is the future perfect progressive

These can also be expressed in the pasive voice, but that is another story.
L J

 

[SoothingDave]

Either means the same, but the first sounds more natural to me.

 

[enthink]

Either means the same, but the first sounds more natural to me.

That's interesting. What about those two:

He was searching for her while she was waiting for him.

He searched for her while she waited for him.

Still the same meaning? If so, which is more natural?

 

[SoothingDave]

I don't expect my computer to be so verbose, so that's why it sounds more natural to me.

For your second question, I would probably mix them up. He searched for her while she was waiting.

 

[birdeen's call]

That's interesting. What about those two:

He was searching for her while she was waiting for him.

He searched for her while she waited for him.

Still the same meaning? If so, which is more natural?

These sentences do not mean the same. There is a regular simple/continuous difference here.

 

[lauralie2]

..., as to preferring one of them, connotations, etc.


Please wait while the wizard searches...

Please wait while the wizard is searching...

Thanks!

The second one sounds odd to me (I don't know why), but if I reverse the order of the clauses, it sounds better:

• While the wizard is searching, please wait.

 

[Raymott]

Hello,

If you are a native English speaker, what differences come to your mind when you compare those two sentences taken from a computer program presumably written by native speakers? What are the rules, as to preferring one of them, connotations, etc.


Please wait while the wizard searches...

Please wait while the wizard is searching...

Thanks!

The first is more likely to be written by a computer programmer, not an English treacher. (It's just as informative and uses fewer keystrokes). So, for a computer output, it sounds natural.
But I guess from your followup requests, that's not really what you're really asking?

 

[lauralie2]

The first is more likely to be written by a computer programmer, not an English treacher.

I don't follow you. Do you mean the grammar or the vocabulary? If the former, see below; if the latter, I don't get the point of your post.

Teacher: Please wait while I grade your paper.
​

 

[vgv8]

The second one sounds odd to me (I don't know why), but if I reverse the order of the clauses, it sounds better:

• While the wizard is searching, please wait.

And this sounds strange to me,especailly because it is recommended to place all the sense/information in the first 2 beginning words for phrases that require an action (wait)

 

[lauralie2]

And this sounds strange to me,especailly because it is recommended to place all the sense/information in the first 2 beginning words for phrases that require an action (wait)

Perhaps that's it. As I mentioned, I don't know why "Please wait while the wizard is searching" sounds odd to me; it just does.

 

[Raymott]

I don't follow you. Do you mean the grammar or the vocabulary? If the former, see below; if the latter, I don't get the point of your post.

Teacher: Please wait while I grade your paper.
​

The point of my post is that I am a native speaker, and the OP wanted to know which sounded more natural to native speakers. The sentence was obviously a computer generated message. I don't expect that this would have been spoken. Perhaps I should have said that it reads more naturally to me as a computer output. That was the point of my post, a point made by others as well.
If it were a question not about a computer prompt, but about the use of the simple present tense and present progressive generally, (which the OP's follow up posts asked about), my answer might have been different.

What should I make of your example sentence? It sounds like a normal sentence, but it would naturally be spoken by a teacher, and not displayed on a screen by a computer (unless I've entirely mistaken the type of wizard we are talking about!)

 

[lauralie2]

The point of my post is that I am a native speaker, and the OP wanted to know which sounded more natural to native speakers. The sentence was obviously a computer generated message.

I agree with you that the first example sentence sounds more natural...'more natural' as in grammatical. Note that, the sentences were provided by a native English speaker (See post #1); they were not computer generated. By the way, people write code, not computers.

What should I make of your example sentence? It sounds like a normal sentence, but it would naturally be spoken by a teacher, and not displayed on a screen by a computer (unless I've entirely mistaken the type of wizard we are talking about!)

:lol:

You wrote, "The first is more likely to be written by a computer programmer, not an English t[STRIKE]r[/STRIKE]eacher"; e.g., Please wait while the wizard searches.

I was looking at the tenses used, not the vocabulary, which was the reason for my questions to you. (Gee, how tedious this Board has become of late. My apologies for perpetuating it. )

 

[Raymott]

I agree with you that the first example sentence sounds more natural...'more natural' as in grammatical. Note that, the sentences were provided by a native English speaker (See post #1);
Well, no. enthink is Polish. see post #1

they were not computer generated. By the way, people write code, not computers.
Yes, I know that. What I meant was that the sentence "Please wait while the wizard searches" is an example of a computer generated message, not that it was computer generated in post 1. "Computer-generated" is used in the industry with the understanding that naturally someone would have to program the computer to generate it. There are advances in Artificial Intelligence in which computers do generate unique messages that are not written by humans. And computers can generate code. But I wasn't referring to that. Sorry if I gave the impression that I thought Enthink was a computer. I'll try to do better.

R.

 

[Tdol]

As it's a program, the firs occupies less space so will fit in a smaller box more easily, so I would go for that one- it's clear and several characters shorter.

 

[enthink]

FWIW, the first example sentence in my OP (Please wait while the wizard searches...) was almost certainly written by a native English human speaker (by whoever designed the program).

 

[apex2000]

As I do a lot of computing and see many examples of those 'wizards' at work I can say that both examples appear regularly; and that they have been written by the programmer or copied from a previous loop which might have been prepared by another programmer. As I stated in my first response they both convey the same message to anyone using a wizard; there would be no confusion or misunderstanding.

As for usage apart from computing I still see no problem in either the use or the understanding.