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From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: I input, I inputted, I am inputting?
Message-ID: <842@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 31-Aug-85 12:12:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.842
Posted: Sat Aug 31 12:12:22 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Sep-85 04:27:14 EDT
References: <429@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
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Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
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In article <429@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>	A recent argument here has prompted me to ask if "input" can
>legitimately be used as a verb, and if so, how does one conjugate it?  Is
>it transitive or reflexive?  Do you input something or does the program
>into which you are putting stuff do the inputting (or whatever)?
>
>	If somebody who worked for you gave you a progress report
>containing the phrase "the user can correct errors after the program has
>inputted the data" would you accept it?

It really boils down to a matter of taste and convention, as do all issues
of language use (aka grammar). What seems "natural" to me is to use
"input" as a transititive verb, which allows either use of the human "agent"
(linguistic term) (in this case the person running the program) or
the inanimate "instrument" (linguistic term) (in this case the hardware or
software) to be the subject. For example.

    The man at the bakery the cut the bread with loaf slicing machine.
    The machine cut the bread.

    I input the data.
    John's program input the data in 2 hours.

As far as conjugation, what seems "natural" to me is to conjugate "input"
like "put", which means the past tense and past participle are irregular "put".