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What's wrong with this sentence?

S

Steve

Lifer
Last week I got a call from a vendor who provides a service to one of my clients. The call was about their addition of an IP address for their software to transmit to, and their change to a "round robin" DNS scheme.

I had the guy email me a Word document outlining the change, and Word 2000 likes to complain about this:

However, beginning on 13 February 2009, [vendor] will begin ?Round Robin? balancing. This means half of the connections to our systems will be made to each IP address. This means if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity.
Click to expand...

The underlined part is what Word is complaining about. Here is how Word would rephrase it:

"This means if any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity, blocks the new IP address."

Doesn't that sound worse?
 
"This means you will experience intermittent connectivity if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers."
 
Originally posted by: MrChad
"This means you will experience intermittent connectivity if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers."
Click to expand...

Tits.
 
I cut and pasted your entry into Word 2007 and got no spelling or grammar messages.

"However, beginning on 13 February 2009, [vendor] will begin ?Round Robin? balancing. This means half of the connections to our systems will be made to each IP address. This means if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity."


However, using "This means" in two consecutive sentences seems redundant and repetitive.

"However, beginning on 13 February 2009, [vendor] will begin ?Round Robin? balancing. This means half of the connections to our systems will be made to each IP address, and if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity."

Reads better.
 
You need more commas as well, specifically, between servers and you. They are separate clauses, and therefore, need to be separated. Depending on the level of formality, you may want to include the implied "that" between means and half as well.
 
"However, beginning on 13 February 2009, [vendor] will begin ?Round Robin? balancing, meaning half of the connections to our systems will be made to each IP address. Additionally, if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device, such as a firewall, DNS server or proxy server, you will experience intermittent connectivity."
 
Depending on how formal the document is, "this" shouldn't be used to start a sentence. In fact, the use of any determiner to begin a sentence should be avoided.

Also, I don't like the "any+plural noun" construction, though it is grammatically correct.

...on second thought, why do you need "this means" in the first place? The close proximity of the sentences makes the temporal/spatial relationship a given. You can just get rid of both "this means" phrases.
 
Originally posted by: ruu
Depending on how formal the document is, "this" shouldn't be used to start a sentence. In fact, the use of any determiner to begin a sentence should be avoided.

Also, I don't like the "any+plural noun" construction, though it is grammatically correct.

...on second thought, why do you need "this means" in the first place? The close proximity of the sentences makes the temporal/spatial relationship a given. You can just get rid of both "this means" phrases.
Click to expand...

First of all, I don't like an "any+plural noun" construction, either. It hurts my ears and sounds stupid! :heart:

I'm quite impressed by your "high levels of grammatical smartness." 😛 :thumbsup:

Hence, I don't think I'm bullying by mentioning the bolded above. It's a nit I love to pick.

Proximity means close, ergo "close proximity" is redundant. 🙁







 
As spidey mentioned, the underlined portion is passive. Also, you should have a comma after the if clause. If you want to be a bit more formal, you'll want to use "then," but that's not really necessary.

Those of you that say your copy of Word isn't complaining about the sentence most likely only have Grammar checking turned on. While in Word, if you go to Tools > Options and select the "Spelling & Grammar" tab, you'll see a "Writing style" combo box. If you change that to "Grammar & Style", it will then check for Passive voice. Note that doing this in the copy of Word 2003 did not turn on checking for use of First Person, which depending on your writing, may not be allowed.
 
Originally posted by: Aikouka
As spidey mentioned, the underlined portion is passive.
Click to expand...

No, it's not. And the grammar checker didn't change it to the active tense, either.

You can't even begin to mention the passive tense as coming into play here without completely misunderstanding the passive tense versus, say, conditional statements. :roll:
 
It might also have a problem with "IP" and "DNS." Tech terms tend to screw with it, too. "Firewalls" is another term which may be causing a "DOES NOT COMPUTE" error for Word's grammar engine.


 
Passive action:

The door is blocked by Jim. ->
Jim blocked the door.

Of course, every situation is genuinely different, and obviously the original version is better 😛
But maybe its because its Word 2000?

edit: I realize Word attempted to fix it like this:

If any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers is blocking the IP address, you will experience intermittent connectivity.

"is blocking" can be replaced with "blocks"
 
Originally posted by: Perknose
No, it's not. And the grammar checker didn't change it to the active tense, either.

You can't even begin to mention the passive tense as coming into play here without completely misunderstanding the passive tense versus, say, conditional statements. :roll:
Click to expand...

Why do you always have to be so damn contentious, Perky? But let's take a peek at your so-called statement that the underlined portion is not in passive voice.

First, to truly make sure we are on the same page, we must have an established definition of the term "passive voice." I shall provide two:

http://dictionary.reference.co...ve+voice&search=search
the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb
Click to expand...

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb...outs/passivevoice.html
A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence.
Click to expand...

Now that we've got the skinny on what exactly the passive voice is, let's take a peek at the portion of the sentence that is in question, shall we?

the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity
Click to expand...

subject = new IP address
verb = is blocked

Okay, so that means that this is written in passive voice if the verb is acting on the subject.

What is being blocked? The IP address.

Therefore it fits the definition above.
 
Originally posted by: Aikouka

[...]


[This means if] the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity
Click to expand...

Do0d, you can't diagram or analyze a sentence properly if you leave key parts out.

IF. <------ You forgot it.

"If" and what follows is a conditional phrase.

You are confusing the passive voice with a conditional phrase.
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by: Steve
Last week I got a call from a vendor who provides a service to one of my clients. The call was about their addition of an IP address for their software to transmit to, and their change to a "round robin" DNS scheme.

I had the guy email me a Word document outlining the change, and Word 2000 likes to complain about this:

However, beginning on 13 February 2009, [vendor] will begin ?Round Robin? balancing. This means half of the connections to our systems will be made to each IP address. This means if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity.
Click to expand...

The underlined part is what Word is complaining about. Here is how Word would rephrase it:

"This means if any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity, blocks the new IP address."

Doesn't that sound worse?
Click to expand...

This means if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as firewalls, DNS servers or proxy servers you will experience intermittent connectivity.

Your singularity is not consistant throughout the sentence...
device = 1
firewalls / servers = more than 1

This means if the new IP address is blocked by any type of IP filtering device such as a firewall, DNS server or proxy server you will experience intermittent connectivity
 
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