I was discussing with a workmate whether user interfaces should be phrased in a positive or a negative manner. I've observed positive sentences are clearer than negative ones to the average user.  I've heard some discussions on this matter and most people seem to agree that phrasing positively yields better results in user experience than negative ones. But is there a UX recommendation on this?  EDIT:  to be clearer: should I notify my user that his/her input data is invalid by saying "input is invalid" or "input is not valid"? Or does it not affect UX at all?  Is it better to negate a positive verb or use a verb that has a negative meaning in itself?
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Does the use of words such as 'fail', 'wrong', 'incorrect' and 'invalid' have a sufficiently negative impact on a users frame of mind to warrant the prohibition of their inclusion in the error messages generated by typical web forms?  i.e. Should we rephrase examples like these to just use positive words?  'date entered incorrectly'  or  'failed to complete registration, please see below for invalid field entries'  (PS, the examples are there to show use of the words in an error message, not to serve as examples of error messages I would use or things that need correcting in answers, I'm not looking for advice on how to write form error messages, but for information about the effect of certain words on a users frame of mind)
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What expression could I use when giving non-detailed answers/explanations about how something works? Let's say I want to explain how a printer works without getting into too much detail, Would it be OK to say:   "At a very superficial level, a printer ...." "At a very high level, a printer ..."   I feel like there are more appropriate expressions to begin such type of sentence. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Recently, when writing an email, I used the following phrase:  'I hope this does not cause too big of an issue'  However, in their response, the recipient (an English teacher) said that he was 'not too sure about the grammar of "too big of an issue"' (with no further comment). However,  seems to suggest otherwise. What could he have possibly picked out as incorrect in my usage of the phrase, and is it really significant enough of an issue to remark on in a response?  This question is not a duplicate because I'm asking about whether the phrase itself is correct, not the etymology of it. Further, it's considering the whole phrase (e.g can an issue be 'big', or should it be 'significant'?), and not just that one part.
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I was wondering whether it is OK to use "errored out" as part of a status message in my code&nbsp;— is it grammatically correct to use it, or is there a better choice of words that I can use in its place?
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When you have a propositional sentence of the form P &sup; Q&nbsp; &mdash; which we might read as "if P, then Q" &mdash; how can you tell when it is true, or false, based on the truth-values of P and Q in classical logic? When is this different from Q &sup; P? And what is the connection to 'necessary' conditions, or sufficient conditions?  Also: does P &sup; Q mean that P causes Q?
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What are common phrases that describe something that appears good but is actually bad?  Edit: Because people say bad is vague I will try to sum up the phrase meaning a little better.   something that looks like it will be helpful or advantageous but after use it is hindering a tool that seems useful but is not the correct tool for the job something that seems like a good idea but after execution turns out to be problematic
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I just came onto a project with a pretty huge code base.   I'm mostly dealing with C++ and a lot of the code they write uses double negation for their boolean logic.    if (!!variable &amp;&amp; (!!api.lookup("some-string"))) {        do_some_stuff();  }                                      I know these guys are intelligent programmers, it's obvious they aren't doing this by accident.   I'm no seasoned C++ expert, my only guess at why they are doing this is that they want to make absolutely positive that the value being evaluated is the actual boolean representation. So they negate it, then negate that again to get it back to its actual boolean value.   Is this correct, or am I missing something?
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There are different types of problem.   or      There are different types of problems.   I easily get confused when I make such sentence(s). Look, still I am not sure whether I should use sentence or sentences.
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Given the following sentences:        I have even started using them in normal writing.   People can understand your writing better.      Are using and writing gerunds, verbs, or some other part of speech?  Context:  I am prefixing the words in some phrases with abbreviations. Some of the words are giving me trouble in classification. (The message is supposed to be an implicit proof of why adding prefixes to table names in a database is terrible. But I'd like to get it right.)  Here's the full set of sentences for your amusement. However, please restrict your comments to the stated question, for the most part.        com-Don't ver-Listen prep-To adj-Those adj-Other nou-People.    pro-You aux-Should adv-Always ver-Use nou-Prefixes prep-With pro-Your adj-Table nou-Names.    pro-I aux-Have adv-Even ver-Started ver-Using pro-Them prep-In adj-Normal nou-Writing.   com-See adv-How adj-Effective pr-It ver-Is?    nou-People aux-Can ver-Understand pro-Your nou-Writing adv-Better!      (where com means command verb)  This question is part of 3 related questions:     This question   It originally came from
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I faced a problem to answer a negative question, for example, when someone asks you:      Don't you have any money?   It's a yes/no question but how should one answer the question without ambiguity?  When you answer "yes", does it mean "yes, I don't have any money"? or the other way "Yes, I do have money"? the questioner may think you are agreeing to the negative, that yes, you do not have any money.  I know it's better to answer with "on the contrary" but is it possible to answer yes or no?
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It’s the  question: Am I looking at someone’s legitimate pronouns or trolling?   (It’s unfortunate I have to ask, but this is just where we are right now.)  I’ve seen “my pronouns are [insert ridiculous fake stuff here]” trolling recently (in posts) when before I never did. Also stuff that looks to be trolling, but could also maybe not be. Trolls deserve red flags while everyone else specifying pronouns does not, right?  (To clarify, the problem is not just about not wanting to use a troll's words. The purpose of some of this trolling is to try and convince people that transgender people—or their neopronouns—are stupid or unreasonable. Ignoring the trolls allows us to avoid the first problem, but not the second since it allows them to still reach people with their message, which is not something that I want to see promoted.)  Some neopronouns are clearly legitimate. Some trolling is clearly trolling. But unfortunately there’s a big grey area where it’s not clear to me what is what.   Does anyone have a good method for dealing with this? There just doesn’t even seem to be a good way to ask about someone’s specified pronouns in such a way that doesn’t sound insulting if the user isn’t trolling.     Note: A while ago, I did some research on neo-/third person pronouns which can be found . There are several important things I found:   There are more neopronouns than I could ever hope to keep track of The most popular neopronouns are very uncommon. On the other end of the spectrum, it looks like some neopronouns are neologisms used by a single person  Some neopronouns come from unlikely places, such as SciFi
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Possible Duplicate:    I was having an SMS conversation with a friend and somehow &quot;Yes you're&quot; came into play in retaliation to a comment. Example:  Person 1: &quot;You are bad at English&quot;. Person 2: &quot;No I are not.&quot;. Person 1: &quot;Yes you're&quot;.  Is that acceptable? I would assume that it is. Think of &quot;don't&quot;. You can say:  &quot;No, don't.&quot;  or  &quot;I don't.&quot;  and it is a contraction like &quot;you're&quot;. So, is it okay?
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Along the lines of the discussion (poll) on , what is the policy for them in chat?  In my mind, there is a very large difference between proper SE site content (posts and comments) and chat.  Chat far more fluid than the "fixed content" of the site, and the occasional expletive here and there rapidly fades into the past.  True, there's a transcript for chat, but one needs to go reaching into the past.  Also, just to be explicit, I'm simply talking about vocabulary, not intent or context.  Saying "F*** these g**d*** if statements" is wholly apart from "Abc's mother looks like a coprolite"  This is part of the   , where people in different rooms see a flagged message containing profanity, and without context reach far too easily for the "valid" button.  If we don't care so much about the language as the idea, that would go a long way (people could instead click "not sure", not that they would, but that's another matter).
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I bumped into  and it suggests the use of (a)  and (b)  Usability Testing.  To be honest, is the first time that I bumped into this kind of terminology, and I while reading about it, it's not quite clear to me how can I use these tools to assess usability.  Can anyone give me an example of each?
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This is a good news.    This is good news.    Which one is correct? Clarify the difference
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When reading about  on the OALD, I saw the following note:     The difference between someone and anyone is the same as the difference between  and . Look at the notes there.   The note that I read for some is the following:     In negative sentences and questions any is usually used instead of some:           I don't want any more vegetables.     Is there any wine left?           However, some is used in questions that expect a positive reply:           Would you like some milk in your coffee?     Didn't you borrow some books of mine?      Does that apply to someone too? Should I use someone in a question when I am expecting a positive answer?      Does someone know the answer?
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Both seem to be in common usage, but is there a nuanced difference about when one is more appropriate than the other? Thanks.