No virus

[Offroad]

Please teachers, proofread these sentences

1. No virus found in this outgoing message.
2. No virus is/was found in this outgoing message.
3. The anti-virus doesn't found any virus in this outgoing message.
4. Anti-virus systems are designed to find virus in/on messages.


Thanks in advance

 

[BobK]

Please teachers, proofread these sentences

1. No virus was found in this outgoing message. :?:
2. No virus is/ :cross: was found in this outgoing message. :?:
3. The anti-virus system/software/<some other noun> [doesn't] has not found any virus in this outgoing message. :?:
4. Anti-virus systems are designed to find viruses in:tick:/on:?:[I've heard it]:?: messages.


Thanks in advance

The problem with 'this outgoing message' is that nobody ever sees it. Anything a user receives (vetted and stamped as OK by the software) is incoming. But the message isn't saying that either; it's saying 'no virus was found in this message at the point where it left the sender's mail client'. So 'this outgoing message' doesn't look right to me.

The thing about virus as a plural ( in No. 4) is that the correct Latin plural is indeed virus (with a long u), but this sort of parade of learning doesn't impress some readers (e.g. me) and doesn't communicate with many others (who'd assume that the noun was singular, which would under-value the software). Most writers about viruses use that as the plural.

Most technical writers would avoid the use of the passive here (1 and 2). It doesn't bother me, but the thing about the active voice is that it says what happened and when, and what did it - so it could be argued that using the passive paved the way for the 'this incoming message' problem. If you'd used the active voice, you'd have thought about when the check was done.


b

 

[Offroad]

Thanks Bob.

Actually I've got this message from a mail service which I don't know who has created it, maybe not an English native speaker.

No virus found in this outgoing message.

I find it odd, it doesn't sound good to me.

No virus was found in this outgoing message sounds better, right?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BobK]

Thanks Bob.

Actually I've got this message from a mail service which I don't know who has created it, maybe not an English native speaker.

No virus found in this outgoing message.

I find it odd, it doesn't sound good to me.

No virus was found in this outgoing message sounds better, right?

Thanks in advance.

Better, but the comparative is just that - comparative. And I wouldn't be so quick to assume that the perpetrator was not a native speaker. Software engineers are a funny bunch; to him [and most of them are male, though a small percentage - single figures, I'd guess - are women] the term 'this outgoing message' would be perfectly meaningful, as he's working on the innards of the software. And he was probably patting himself on the back for getting the Latin plural right. And he would have dropped the auxiliary verb as a matter of course (as many software engineers can still remember - or were taught by people who still remember - the days when every byte counted [to make a program fit into a 64K memory, or whatever tiny amount it might be]). ;-)

b
PS
Q How do you recognize an extrovert software engineer?
A. He looks at the ends of your shoes while he's talking to you.
[How glad I am to have left that world!]

 

[Offroad]

ok, thanks.