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alexbod - 11 Dec 2003 19:40 GMT

Wouldn't like to sound cheeky, but could I ask anyone who is good at English
to take a look at a piece of news I made up? It deals with a sample
application, which is conceived to underline some features of a gui library.
Does it sound quite natural?
===
[The sample] Illustrates how to use feature-rich flat tabs to be introduced
in SomeSoftware 5.55 (coming soon). With a new flat tab control, you may
create tabs that look like sheet tabs in Microsoft Excel or Output pane tabs
in Microsoft Visual Studio 6. Or you may even give your tabs any customized
look and feel you wish.

The flat tab control allows you to easily use any windows and controls as
its pages: trees, lists, edits, dialogs, and etc. Besides it can be inserted
into any window including dialogs, MDI/SDI views and control bars (as it is
made in the sample).
===
Thank you in advance.

Regards,
Alexander Bodnarchuk

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John Ings - 11 Dec 2003 21:13 GMT

>[The sample] Illustrates how to use feature-rich flat tabs to be introduced
>in SomeSoftware 5.55 (coming soon). With a new flat tab control, you may
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>into any window including dialogs, MDI/SDI views and control bars (as it is
>made in the sample).

Assuming I understand the use of your app (which I might not) I would
write that as follows:

[The sample] Illustrates how to use feature-rich Flat Tabs that will
be introduced in SomeSoftware 5.55 (coming soon). With our new Flat
Tab control, you may create tabs that look like the sheet tabs in
Microsoft Excel or the Output pane tabs in Microsoft Visual Studio 6.
Or you may give your tabs any customized look and feel you wish.

Trees, lists, edits, dialogs, whatever you like can be displayed in
Flat Tab control pages. They can be inserted into any window including
MDI/SDI views and control bars (as it is shown in the sample).

## COMPILER: Software that turns sourcecode into error messages.

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alexbod - 12 Dec 2003 07:46 GMT

John Ings wrote:

> Assuming I understand the use of your app (which I might not) I would
> write that as follows:
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> Flat Tab control pages. They can be inserted into any window including
> MDI/SDI views and control bars (as it is shown in the sample).

Thank you very much John for your help. The only question left is why we
cannot use the construction "... Flat Tabs to be introduced in..."
(noun+passive infinitive)? Is it a matter of a grammar mistake or something
else?

Thank you again.

Regards,
Alexander Bodnarchuk

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John Ings - 12 Dec 2003 10:33 GMT

>John Ings wrote:
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>(noun+passive infinitive)? Is it a matter of a grammar mistake or something
>else?

You can use "to be introduced in" if you like, it isn't wrong.
It's just that when I see "to be introduced in" I expect to see a date
follow. e.g.

"[The sample] Illustrates how to use feature-rich Flat Tabs, to
be introduced in SomeSoftware 5.55 in the 1st quarter of 2004."

With the date lacking, replaced by a vague (coming soon), the phrase
"that will be introduced" just sounded more natural.

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alexbod - 12 Dec 2003 10:52 GMT

John Ings wrote:

> You can use "to be introduced in" if you like, it isn't wrong.
> It's just that when I see "to be introduced in" I expect to see a date
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> With the date lacking, replaced by a vague (coming soon), the phrase
> "that will be introduced" just sounded more natural.

Thank you for your fast reply.

Regards,
Alexander Bodnarchuk

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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / December 2003

Weird or not?