Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

operational vs. operating

English answer:

operational / process

Added to glossary by María Eugenia Wachtendorff
Jun 24, 2008 05:42
16 yrs ago
41 viewers *
English term

operational vs. operating

English Tech/Engineering Linguistics
Dear colleagues:
I posted a question in the Spanish-English venue and two answerers have suggested "operational measurements" and "operating measurements," both of them with the maximum confidence level.
Here is the link: http://www.proz.com/kudoz/spanish_to_english/engineering_gen...

I have to grade that question. Will you please help me?
Thanks in advance!
Change log

Jun 24, 2008 16:03: María Eugenia Wachtendorff changed "Field (specific)" from "Engineering: Industrial" to "Linguistics"

Discussion

Aixa Algaba Maye Dec 12, 2011:
Hi! First of all I'd like to thank the people here for being so helpful with this whole "operating" vs "operational" thing. I still have some doubts though, as I'm translating a text where I found this sentencee "potencia eléctrica total instalada operativa a 1/12/2000."

I assume the last thing is a date, then my question is, how can I express "operativo a (date)" in this case? I thought operating would be a nice one but then my research brought me there and I still can't understand.

Thank you all in advance, your work is awesome!
María Eugenia Wachtendorff (asker) Jun 24, 2008:
Hello everybody! As I already closed my ES-EN question, I would like to ask you to circumscribe your answers to this one to the use of "operational" versus "operating" from a linguistic standpoint. Thank you!

Responses

+1
9 hrs
Selected

operational / process

Of course I'm biassed here in favour of my own answer in the eng-spa pair...

But I like David's 'process measurements' also - provided that the context is one that actually involves a 'process' of some kind. That might be the case, for example, in a biscuit-making plant, or a refinery in the petroleum industry, but in areas of engineering that I have worked in - such as the operation of broadcast transmitters - there is no 'process' as such (there is no tangible 'product' being processed) and we always refer to 'operational measurements'.

Note also that 'operational measurements' is commonly used when there is a need to make a distinction vis à vis measurements taken while installing or commissioning systems, or while diagnosing fault conditions: in these circumstances additional measurements would normally be taken, desides referring to the normal operational measurements.

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Note added at 9 hrs (2008-06-24 15:38:55 GMT)
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oops: missed out a word:

would normally be taken, desides referring to the normal operational measurements.
-->would normally be taken, *besides those* referring to the normal operational measurements.

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Note added at 10 hrs (2008-06-24 16:39:21 GMT)
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Restricting ourselves to the operational / operating problem:

‘operational’ is an adjective meaning ‘related to an operation’. So we have ‘operational staff’ meaning employees involved in operating something.

‘operating’ is the gerund of the verb ‘to operate’, and it can be used as a noun (in the same way as Spanish can use the infinitive as a noun). So we have ‘operating the machine is easy’, where ‘operating (the machine)’ is a noun-phrase forming the subject of the verb ‘to be’.

Other examples of correct usage include:
“We closed the factory for operational reasons.”
“Our operational requirements are making excessive demands on our resources.”
And, in the context of María Eugenia’s question:
“Operational measurements on the system were out of tolerance so we called in the experts.”

Then we have a ‘grey’ area where popular usage has distorted the previously clear origins and meanings of these words. We have ‘operating instructions’, which should, perhaps (?), be ‘operational instructions’ ...
Peer comment(s):

agree David Moore (X)
21 mins
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you very much for the explanation :) I've lived my whole life in the financial "grey area" of operating expenses, budgets, charges, surpluses, accounts, supplies, etc., etc., etc."
+3
35 mins

operational

I think "operational" in this case:
Welcome to IEEE Xplore 2.0: Deep water current profile ...
Deep water current profile measurements for operational support anddesign statistics Moore, A.N. Stephens, R.V. Wimpey Environ. Int. Ltd., Swindon; ...
ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=516156
Peer comment(s):

agree Teresa Reinhardt
13 mins
Thank you.
agree Edith Kelly
1 hr
Thank you.
neutral David Moore (X) : I think they are both wrong..."process measurements" is correct for me.
1 hr
agree wendyzee (X)
12 hrs
Thank you.
Something went wrong...
+1
1 hr

operational measurements

"operational measurements", tal vez "operation(al) measurements"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="operational measurem.....
estoy más inclinado a "operational measurements".
"operating measurement" tiene otro sentido en este contexto, si tiene cualquier sentido.
Peer comment(s):

agree Edith Kelly
54 mins
Thank you & gracias for your opinion, EdithK! :) Regards from Moscow :)
Something went wrong...
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