Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[river1974]

Dear teachers, please check out the following sentences:

(a) This device is served as a controller to control the movement of the cursor.
(b) This device serves as a controller to control the movement of the cursor.

I saw both usage in different papers. I wonder which one is more natural. Please give me a suggestion. Thanks in advance.

[RebeccaGMW]

Hi!

I'm not sure of the context of the first sentence. It doesn't seem to make much sense, actually. If you omitted the word "is" from the first sentence it would simply be the past tense of the second sentence. Perhaps it's a typo?

The second sentence is an example of how "serves" is usually used, so it is the more natural option.



Rebecca
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[river1974]

Thank you, RebeccaGMW. I often encounter similar situations when doing the translation. My supervisor prefers the first sentence. He thinks that "device" is in the dead form, which means it is not alive like human beings or creatures, so it is proper to use the passive voice. On my job, nearly all the documents I deal with are technology-related ones. Because components of the high-tech product are all non-alive, he wishes us to describe them in the passive voice. Another example is as follows.

(a) The keyboard is functioned as an input device for the computer.
(b) The keyboard functions as an input device for the computer.

We always use sentence (a) on the translation, and it seems to work out fine because we don't receive correction from foriegn institutions. But personally, I think "functions as" is better than "is functioned as" in comparison.

[RebeccaGMW]

I understand his concern, however, I think that if you replace functioned with "used", it would be proper and still not personify the item.

So, the sentence would be:

The keyboard is used as an input device for the computer.

Using the phrase "is functioned" in the examples you gave is not correct usage.
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[river1974]

Thanks very much for your suggestion, RebeccaGMW.

[RebeccaGMW]

You're very welcome.
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