Re: English usuage question

That doesn't make any sense to me.  The power doesn't press the button --
change the words around to something that does something by doing something
else (I see by turning on the lights) and you'll understand why it doesn't
work.

I suspect a more natural approach would be to say, "To turn off the power,
press the button" or "the power will turn off when you press the button" or
"the power will turn off when the button is pressed."

Sarah Marie Parker-Allen
lloannna@surfside.net
http://www.geocities.com/lloannna.geo
http://lloannna.blogspot.com

"I will never buy an apple from peddlers plying their craft in remote places
where the customer base could not possibly support a full-time merchant." --
Rules for the Hero's True Love

> -----Original Message-----
> Behalf Of Andreas Johansson
> I recently found on a piece of electronic stuff the instruction "The power
> turns off by pressing the button". I thought this was an odd way
> of putting
> it, and said so. But a there-present girl, who like me isn't a L1
> speaker of
> English, insisted it was a perfectly normal expression. I still it's
> somewhere on the line between weirdness and ergativity. So, what does the
> Native Speakers (tm) on the list think?
>
>                                                    Andreas
>
---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by SURFSIDE INTERNET]