inform 7: feed bowl problem

 a water bowl is a fixed in place container in the cage. a feed bowl is a fixed in place container in the cage. the water bowl contains H2O. bread is here.
Instead of putting bread in the feed bowl: say "The food bowl looks pretty dirty. Would you eat out of that? I doubt it, so don't make the goose eat out of it."

why does’nt this work?

This is a slightly annoying thing I7 has going for itself. In play, you can type “put x into y” and the parser will understand, but that’s not the real name of the action. To find the real name, you could use the Index, but I think it’s much easier to start your game (without that code), use the “actions” command, and try putting something into something else. The text “inserting the (something) into (something)” will appear. This is the name of the actual action.

The pet shop is a room. The cage is a container in the pet shop. The water bowl is a fixed in place container in the cage. a feed bowl is a fixed in place container in the cage. the water bowl contains H2O. bread is in the pet shop. Instead of inserting bread into the feed bowl: say "The food bowl looks pretty dirty. Would you eat out of that? I doubt it, so don't make the goose eat out of it."

As for why it is this way, well, the real action only has one name. “put [other thing] into [thing]” is simply a synonym for inserting it into.

Off topic, but goose-related.

[rant]Please don’t feed the goose.

In parts of the east coast of the US, Canada geese have become a major nuisance. What was originally a wild and migratory population has gotten out of control, largely as a result of well-intentioned people feeding them over the past few decades. With a ready food supply and few natural predators, the population has gotten out of control, and the birds are no longer migratory. And where there are geese, there is goose guano – lots and lots of goose guano.

So please don’t feed the goose.

Robert Rothman (who spent part of last weekend trying to clean a lot of goose dung off my mother’s driveway)[/rant]

Please do eat the goose! Goose is so damn tasty.

I heard last year that animal rights activists were up in arms because New York City was culling geese. The great thing about these programs (Philadelphia has a deer culling program) is that the meat is invariably donated to soup kitchens. Yum!