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Marius Hancu
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546604
Sat, 26 Jul 08 11:08 AM
OK, let's get official here. I should've done it from the beginning:  -- But since can also be used as a conjunction of time, introducing its own clause. The tense in the since-clause can be perfect or past, depending on the meaning. Compare: I've known her since we were at school together.
I've known her since I've lived in this street. We visit my parents every week since we bought the car.
We visit my parents every week since we've had the car. You've drunk about ten cups of tea since you arrived.
You've drunk about ten cups of tea since you've been sitting here. They had been close friends since Alice was small.
They hadn't seen much of each other since Polly (had) moved away. Sometimes a present perfect tense is used in a since-clause, exceptionally, to refer to a finished point of time. It is now a year since we have last discussed your future.
(More normal: ... since we last discussed ...). Swan, Practical English Usage, since:tenses ----------
Joined on
Wed, Apr 26 2006
Veteran Member
11,673
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Marius Hancu
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546608
Sat, 26 Jul 08 11:24 AM
I strongly suggest everyone still interested in this matter (esp the original poster) to read all the comments at this link: http://tinyurl.com/5fubhs esp those of Jim Karatassos. Anyway, for me this has been an instructive thread, as I've refreshed some of my ideas. Thanks.
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Mr Wordy
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546634
Sat, 26 Jul 08 01:59 PM
 Marius Hancu“ Sometimes a present perfect tense is used in a since-clause, exceptionally, to refer to a finished point of time.
It is now a year since we have last discussed your future.
(More normal: ... since we last discussed ...).”
To me, this is not the full story (and it's also a poor example).
In this context, the perfect tense tends to suggest activity that was repeated or habitual until the time it stopped. For example,
It's a long time since I've had a cigarette. -- reinforces the idea that I used to smoke regularly.
It's a long time since I had a cigarette. -- also fine.
Google hits: 16,600 + 11,700 = 28,300 for "since I've/I have had a cigarette"; 15,800 for "since I had a cigarette". Hardly "exceptional" then.
Because of this implication of repeated activity, I would not normally use "last" with the perfect tense. "Last" emphasises that we're focusing on one specific last instance, not the cessation of a regular pattern of activity, so the two do not "go together" very well. I would not, for example, say
It's a long time since I've last had a cigarette. -- sounds wrong.
It's a long time since I last had a cigarette. -- fine.
Joined on
Tue, May 27 2008
Senior Member
2,359
Native British English speaker
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Marius Hancu
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546937
Sun, 27 Jul 08 11:06 AM
Mr. Wordy: >In this context, the perfect
tense tends to suggest activity that was repeated or habitual
until the time it stopped. I know several people who would agree with you on that. John Holmes said: -- > 1) It's a long time since they HAVE LIVED in London. 1) suggests they have lived in London several times, all of them a long
time ago. Almost equivalent to "It's a long time since they last lived
in London". http://tinyurl.com/5fubhs -- >Because of this implication of repeated activity, I would not normally use "last" with the perfect tense. I know that at least Jim Karatassos would agree with you: ---
Your first sentence, "It's a long time since they HAVE LIVED in
London." breaks one of what R.A. Close called many years ago "a solid-
core rule" in English.
The reason is that the use of the present perfect in English, in one
form or another, always indicates a connection with a present time.
By stating, "It's a long time..." you are indicating a split between
the present and the past, one that puts the fact that "they lived in
London" most definitely in the past. http://tinyurl.com/5fubhs ---
even though you two are talking about slightly different things.
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Mr Wordy
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547004
Sun, 27 Jul 08 01:43 PM
Marius Hancu “The reason is that the use of the present perfect in English, in one
form or another, always indicates a connection with a present time.”
I understand this objection, and I have a theory about this.
Originally (perhaps a hundred or two years ago), I speculate that, for example, "It's a long time since he's lived there", really would have meant "He's lived there for a long time", with the perfect tense indicating, as you say, a connection with the present. However, in modern usage it's impossible for "since" + "long time" to mean "for a long time", so that meaning is unavailable. Therefore, at some stage the meaning shifted to (almost the same as) "It's a long time since he lived there". Those people who find "It's a long time since he's lived there" unsatisfactory have not assimilated this change of meaning (and I don't in any way mean that in a negative or critical sense), and they are caught in the situation where neither the original meaning nor the everyday modern meaning works for them.
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Mr Wordy
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547024
Sun, 27 Jul 08 03:12 PM
Marius Hancu “ 1 on "since I have had a cigarette"
7 on "since I've had a cigarette"
17 on "since I had a cigarette"”
Hmmm... I think that Google is getting itself confused over "since I had a cigarette" (not that these figures in any case support the view that this usage is "exceptional"). If I'm in ten-per-page view then, when I click on the second page, I get no more hits, just the same page repeated. If I switch to twenty-per-page view then it tells me there are only 10, and shows those 10. One of these is an exact duplicate (presumably quoting an earlier book, or reusing the same quote), and one uses "since" in the sense of "considering that". That makes it 8-8.
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Mr Wordy
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547584
Mon, 28 Jul 08 07:57 PM
I'm afraid, Marius, that you are never going to persuade me that "It's years since I've had a cigarette", and similar expressions, are in any way exceptional, unusual or strange. In my experience, this form of wording is routinely and quite naturally used by large numbers of native speakers at all levels of language proficiency. It's possible that there may be regional differences, of course, and we've noted that some individual speakers object to them.
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