Comment by perching_aix
3 days ago
Might be just my ESL self being silly but these examples both read horribly:
> For example, the sentence, "The Developer Center, a site for reference material and other resources, has been introduced to the OpenShift website." reads better than
Even without reading the next bit I just knew that no, this does not read better. The insertion of "a site for reference material and other resources" just makes this sentence horrible to follow period.
> "The OpenShift website introduces the Developer Center, a site for reference material and other resources." Here, the passive voice is better because the important issue ("The Developer Center") is the subject of the sentence.
This reads silly for another reason: websites don't... introduce things. Website owners might. Also, I feel it should say "reference materials" not "reference material".
It might be dialectical, but in American English, I think “reference material” sounds fine. (Maybe “material” in this context is uncountable or collective or something)
That sentence structure of the first example ('subject, long tangent, conclusion') is very common in the German language (and a major annoyance for me when reading German), so perhaps the author has that background?
It's also a very typical sentence structure taught in US English. I learned it around 7th grade where there's a huge push to teach formulaic ways to use commas properly instead of just sprinkling them everywhere in run-on sentences.
Googling now, that usage is often referred to as using commas to offset a non-essential clause.
Notably, because German has more articles and conjugations, this writing style is very clear and easy to follow in German, at least to native speakers.
> This reads silly for another reason: websites don't... introduce things. Website owners might.
That feels overly pedantic, and is incorrect. “Introduce” means “bring a subject to the attention of (someone) for the first time”. It doesn’t need to be done by a person.
It’s perfectly acceptable to say, for example, “The Shining introduced me to the horror movie genre”. That doesn’t leave room for doubt that you mean The Shining was your first horror movie. It would’ve been silly to say “Stanley Kubrick introduced me to the horror movie genre” just because you watched one of his movies.
Is that not an idiom? https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/introduce+me+to
The keyword may be the same, but it's really not the same intended meaning.
> It doesn’t need to be done by a person.
Not entirely what I was trying to suggest, but that it's usually an organization, a project, or a specific person who introduces things, and that I'm not sure how to pin this semantic category down. In the example sentence, "RedHat" or "the OpenShift project" would have been much better choices I'd say for example. Consider:
> The OpenShift project introduces the Developer Center, a new section to the OpenShift website dedicated to reference materials and other resources.
I agree with you that these examples feel awkward
>This reads silly for another reason: websites don't... introduce things.
The way they're using "introduces" does feel awkward, but in general, it's fine to say that a website "introduces" something.
For example, the Homestar Runner website introduced the world to Strong Bad. Or Action Comics #1 introduced Superman. You wouldn't really say that the author of Action Comics #1 introduced Superman.
Going 100% by vibes regarding this, but I feel "introduced the world to" / "introduced x to the world" being a very established phrase is what makes it overpower the awkwardness that's otherwise present.
For example, "Or Action Comics #1 introduced Superman." immediately feels more awkward, the reason it's not quite as awkward as RedHat's example is because it's in-context and doesn't explicitly mention "website", so one could conceivably mistake it for a magazine instead (which I take it probably was/is, an online one specifically).
Using "website" like this is like suggesting they're a publication or a periodical of some sort, which is true for some, but not in general (e.g. news sites?), making it weird.