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	<title>chrishowie.com &#187; rant</title>
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	<description>The best laid plans are in my other pants</description>
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		<title>&#8220;Erroring off?&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.chrishowie.com/2008/07/23/erroring-off/</link>
		<comments>http://www.chrishowie.com/2008/07/23/erroring-off/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:59:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Chris</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Computer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[english]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.chrishowie.com/?p=95</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Has anyone told you that a program is &#8220;erroring off&#8221; or that some system &#8220;errored off?&#8221; Occasionally I have the pleasure of receiving such notices and every time it makes me cringe. Let me explain something. &#8220;Error&#8221; is not a verb. You can&#8217;t error. It&#8217;s not possible. When you type &#8220;erroring&#8221; it has a red [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Has anyone told you that a program is &#8220;erroring off&#8221; or that some system &#8220;errored off?&#8221;  Occasionally I have the pleasure of receiving such notices and every time it makes me cringe.</p>
<p>Let me explain something.  &#8220;Error&#8221; is not a verb.  You can&#8217;t error.  It&#8217;s not possible.  When you type &#8220;erroring&#8221; it has a red wavy underline for a reason.</p>
<p>You <i>can</i> err.  &#8220;Erring off&#8221; is at least valid English, but I&#8217;m not sure what purpose the &#8220;off&#8221; serves.  &#8220;Erring&#8221; works by itself.</p>
<p>Or you could just use one of the industry-standard terms, like</p>
<ul>
<li>crashed,</li>
<li>failed,</li>
<li>went down, or</li>
<li>is unavailable.</li>
</ul>
<p>As a bonus, most of these actually convey the nature of the problem.  The only information &#8220;erroring off&#8221; conveys is that you not only don&#8217;t know exactly what went wrong, but also have a substandard grasp of the English language.</p>
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