What tense would we use to talk about inventions. For example, woud you say

"Addison discovered electricity (simple past because it happened at a time known to most people though the speaker may not remember the year)?

or

Addison has discovered electricity (present perfect becasue his invention is still used today and thus still connected to the present)?"

simple past vs present perfect still poses a challenge even to teachers of English around the world as in my school, the teacher chose to use the present perfect even though I feel that the simple past is the only right answer.

Your help is much appreciated.

Anxiety wrote:

1.    SENTENCES:                1.  What are you doing? I (tell) ________  you not to touch my suitcase!                2. What an unusual print! Where (you find) ____________ it?           In both cases the grammar book gives me as keys the simple past ("I told you..." and " did you find it?") and so I told my students.         Anyway some of them put the present perfect and asked me why their answers were uncorrect. They said they chose the pp because there's a link between present and past. I was unable to give them any explanation...              Actually, I'm in two minds too, especially regarding sentence n.2, but my students need an answer to clarify their doubts (and so do I...)  :-(           What I ask you is:         - as for sentence n. 1, I would use the simple past just because it sounds me better, but is the pp uncorrect? If so, why?        - as for sentence n. 2:  me, too, I would have used the present perfect, because the first part of the sentence shows me the print is there, before me.... Why is the past tense the only correct tense, instead?   What' s the rule behind?   Thank you in advance for your help!   PlP

Hi Anxiety,

In my opinion, if we really want to nitpick and be speech-perfect, I would use Pres. Perfect on # 1 and just a simple past tense for # 2.

For # 1, I  feel that  to stress the point, [I have told you ( many times) not to touch…] has much more semantical and lexical effect than [I told you].  Present perfect carries an annotation of an on-going message which works well in this context.

For # 2, In contrary with the context of an [unusual print], [where did you fin fit?] is much more idiomatic and logically correct because [where have you found that print] just sounds unfitting due to the fact that once you found something, the act of finding is completed.  Having said that, in many context, [have found] are much more prevailing.

i.e. After failing two marriages, he has finally found his soul mate in Jennifer..

      He tried several careers in the past ten years. I think Jack has finally found the job he likes which is being a policeman.

Thanks Mister.

Thanks Calif. I like your lucid explanation. Your elaboration on the answer of Mister is greatly appreciated! I dont think any grammar book could provide the help that you do. Thanks a ton!