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Compound words keep troubling me... I am writing an academic article about detecting the health of a system or a piece of equipment. For example, if a coffee machine works correctly, it means it has a good health, otherwise, a bad health (degraded or faulty). So just to give you the context.

To talk about the health of a system, instead of saying "the health of the system" or "the health of an equipment", can I express it otherwise with compound nouns such as:

  • equipment health
  • system health
  • machinery health

An example sentence would be "We propose this method to monitor the system health".

Or, would it be more correct to use possessive?

  • system's health
  • equipment's health

However, it seems a bit odd to me because I believe 's is for animated subjects only.

Are the three words equivalent? Is one more natural than the others?

Thank you very much in advance!

Elise Le
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    We don't usually talk about the 'health' of a piece of equipment but its 'condition'. The coffee machine is in good condition. The coffee machine is working properly. Conversely, the coffee machine isn't in 'bad health' (except perhaps to be said humorously), but is 'faulty'. – Weather Vane Apr 27 '22 at 09:39
  • In practice, we nearly always monitor system performance.** I'd say, that's effectively a "proxy" measurement reflecting system condition, but for a more common "precise" term, there's *monitor system status***. – FumbleFingers Apr 27 '22 at 10:45
  • 'Health' is sometimes used for non-sentient things, such as 'financial health'. – Weather Vane Apr 27 '22 at 10:47
  • There are a couple of questions here about whether it's OK to use apostrophe-s with inanimate things. The consensus seems to be that there's no rule against it (other than in a few usage guides, which made the rule up); it's more common to use "of" than "'s" with non-human things, but it depends on the situation. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/6735/do-things-use-apostrophe-for-indicating-possessive https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1031/is-using-the-possessive-s-correct-in-the-cars-antenna – Stuart F Apr 27 '22 at 10:55
  • 'The health of the system' and 'the system's health' are both used, the former probably sounding better in certain sentences. 'The system health', while 'grammatical', is, in my opinion, so unidiomatic that it sounds rarefied. // 'The health of the fridge / the computer / the TV / my phone / ...' are so unidiomatic as to be best considered incorrect. 'Condition' may work, as Weather Vane says, or 'state', but even here individual sentences may sound off. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 27 '22 at 11:17
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    I have seen "System health" used quite often by computer monitoring software. On the other hand I have never seen "equipment health" or "machinery health" in any context. System status is similar but broader - the remaining storage capacity in a storage unit is not a system health issue but it should be reported by a system status monitor. – Peter Apr 27 '22 at 11:26
  • Similarly you don't give the photocopier a 'health check' but a 'service'. – Weather Vane Apr 27 '22 at 12:18
  • In the engineering world, system health monitoring, engine health monitoring, network health monitoring, device health monitoring are all terms in daily use. Nothing unidiomatic there. https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/our-stories/discover/2019/intelligent-engine-health-monitoring.aspx – Jim Apr 27 '22 at 13:41
  • Thank you all so much for your comments! Indeed it's for a research in the engineering field. I've seen all three terms used in some academic writing ("system health": https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00170-004-2131-6, "equipment health": https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1632455, "machinery health": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888327017305988), but still I'm not sure which one is the most correct. As I'm not a native English speaker and neither are any of the people I know so I hope I can get your suggestion on this wording issue. – Elise Le Apr 27 '22 at 14:52
  • It depends on what the most accurate description of the thing is. Is it a system, a machine, or a set of equipment? – Jim Apr 27 '22 at 15:29
  • "System health" isn't a problem. (It's not an organism, but metaphor is fine.) "The system's health" is also fine. Apostrophe-s isn't limited to animate nouns: heaven's gate; America's Best (a chain store); science's purpose; my pinky's fingernail. – Maverick Apr 27 '22 at 15:34

1 Answers1

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"Vigor(ous)" and "Robust(ness)" are both words that can be flexibly used to express optimization and/or strength of a system.

For example:

Our system provides both vigor(ous) response and robust performance.

user22542
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