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A company has the words This order will ship on 9/14/2010 from our Virginia location on their website. The user could request a ship date in the future.

The internal, recommended replacement is This order is requested to ship on 9/14/2010 from our Virginia location but the readability of the statement is in question.

What is the correct way to combine a requested ship date and a location statement in a single sentence?

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Does it have to be a single sentence? – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Aug 30 '10 at 20:43
Not if it reads well and is concise. – davidj Aug 30 '10 at 20:52
A "requested ship date": Is this the date that a customer has asked an order be shipped out to them? – Neil Fein Aug 31 '10 at 4:02

4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

"This order is requested to ship on 9/14/2010 from our Virginia location" but the readability of the statement is in question.

The problem here seems to be that the sentence reads as if the order itself has been requested to do something, when in fact the customer has requested the company to ship the order on date from location.

You could turn it into an active sentence:

The customer has requested shipment on date from location.

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The active sentence was deemed most readable. Thank you to everyone for their insight! – davidj Sep 2 '10 at 12:15
@davidj: good news, a useful answer. – delete Sep 2 '10 at 12:19
up vote 0 down vote

I would like Shipment from our Virginia location on 9/14/2010, as user requested.

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Is that a complete sentence? – jjnguy Aug 30 '10 at 17:42
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@Justin: No, it isn't. And that doesn't matter. – ShreevatsaR Aug 31 '10 at 1:10
up vote 2 down vote

This order is scheduled to ship on 9/14/2010 from our Virginia location, per customer request.

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The statement cannot be an implied guarantee. This one is quite readable, but implies guarantee. However, this order MAY ship is right out as well. :-) – davidj Aug 30 '10 at 19:51
I see, however "may ship" starts to sound slippery. So perhaps "is scheduled to ship". – Chris Noe Aug 31 '10 at 1:58
This sentence also seems needlessly complex, which unfortunately means that it's business-friendly. – Neil Fein Sep 1 '10 at 7:07
up vote 0 down vote

The order has a requested ship date of 9/14 from our Virginia location.

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