MrPedantic  +  367300 Sat, 19 May 07 01:18 AM Well, I've no doubt there are such students; but there are many others who haven't been told to use the past form to their professors (no one told me, for instance). As we discussed earlier, respect and acceptance of social distance aren't the only interpretations. Cf. #2 sounds more polite to me; it might indicate deference, tentativeness, or condescension. Plus unobtrusiveness, etc. Or cunning, when you want to usher someone towards a particular decision. MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 12,592 ...opella forensis / adducit febris...

	milky  +  367316 Sat, 19 May 07 02:36 AM <As we discussed earlier, respect and acceptance of social distance aren't the only interpretations. Cf.> Indeed not, but we shouldn't leave those things out of the equation. milky Joined on Thu, Jan 15 2004 Senior Member 3,149 Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".