"I've been knowing him for years"?

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Grammar Geek

#339447 Thu, 15 Mar 07 02:40 AM

The same place you can express your joy over the express lane at th grocery store saying "12 items or fewer."

Grammar Geek

Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006

Pennsylvania, USA

Veteran Member (16,089)

Barbara, who answers in American English.

CalifJim

#339463 Thu, 15 Mar 07 04:14 AM

Interesting -- The second sentence seems very unnatural to me, but the first one seems fine! Perhaps because having an argument" as it's used here is a recurrent, but not continuous state? Like "I've been having pains in my knee for weeks now " -- not constantly, but recurring.

Peculiar, isn't it?

I have a headache. (stative)
I'm having a headache. I'm having one of my headaches. (cast in the form of an 'activity')

to have a CD (be in a state)
to have an argument (participate in an activity)

Of the two (state / activity) only an activity can be recurrent, so there's a connection to recurrence perhaps, but I think the state vs. activity polarity seems more relevant than recurrence to the appropriateness of the progressive aspect.

Weird, huh?

CJ

CalifJim

Joined on Mon, Aug 2 2004

California

Veteran Member (17,765)

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Nietzsche

Goodman

#339485 Thu, 15 Mar 07 05:25 AM

Anon,

If the experts have to explain every "why" and "exception" and you have to remember every "because" from the forum, we will be completely consumed, with no time to help the learners. Sometime, it's better to just take the answer from the experts and go on learning other aspect of English. Beside, the answers are true and satisfactory to me. As your learning accumulates, you may discover the "why's" on your own.

Goodman

Joined on Mon, Nov 7 2005

Calif. USA

Senior Member (3,247)

The name says it all!

Marius Hancu

#339537 Thu, 15 Mar 07 11:15 AM

*"the food is tasting great!"

This is what I call the forced/unnatural activization of verbs, taking place all around us.

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Verbs

Anonymous

#561563 Tue, 02 Sep 08 03:31 PM

One of explanations could be a confusion between the "progressive" tenses. For example, the verb "to know" indeed can not be used in ONE of the progressive tenses, known also as "Continuous", ex.: "I'm knowing it". But it looks pretty OK in another progressive tense - Perfect Progressive (Perfect Continuous), ex.: "I've been knowing it".

Actually, the "Continuous" tense has nothing to do with continuation. It refers to a moment and should rather have been called "Momentary" in order to avoid confusions like the above one.

Anonymous

Verbs, Tenses, Perfect Progressive

CalifJim

#561723 Tue, 02 Sep 08 10:16 PM

Sorry, but I can't think of an example where I've been knowing it seems natural. Can you provide one?

CalifJim

Anonymous

#572148 Wed, 01 Oct 08 09:12 AM

Google gives 213 instances of "I've been knowing it". Not much, but it counts. A search string like "been knowing" gives 71000 instances, which is absolutely considerable. People keep treating the verb "to know" as a normally and logically durative verb, which it actually is, despite the prohibition to use it with Past Perfect Progressive (Continuous) Tense. Why do they use a way trickier form, when a much shorter form ("I have known") is taught in shools? All so called "stative" verbs are durative ("I started to know it two years ago, and the duration of this my knowledge is valid until today", or "I knew it for two years, then I forgot it, i.e. I stopped knowing it. I don't know it anymore"), so there is no logical background to forbid using this verb with the "Duration Tense" (PPP/PPC).

Anonymous

Verbs, Tenses, Past Perfect, Perfect Progressive

Goodman

#572304 Wed, 01 Oct 08 06:20 PM

If you say "I've been working with him in the same company for years", it is perfectly fine.
But the verb "know", is among the many verbs that do not work well in perfect tense.
Google information is good for a rough comparison but not completely accurately trustworthy in my opinion.
Sometimes, even a native website could post grammaticlly questionable writing.

<< I started to know it two years ago...>> by the way, this looks completely grammatical but sounded really strange! (8-|) Geeked