will be waking up now

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Selecter  #310858  Fri, 05 Jan 07 05:40 PM
Mr. Grinch had stolen all the presents in the town and yelled: "They will be waking up now"
Isn't now only for the present continuous?
  
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milky  #310859  Fri, 05 Jan 07 05:43 PM

She used to be a teacher, but now she works in publishing.
I may eat something later, but I'm not hungry now.
Many people now own a video recorder.

She's been a vegetarian for ten years now.

Now isn't a good time to speak to him.
I thought you'd have finished by now.
You should have mentioned it before now.
That's all for now (= until a future point in time).

Etc.

  
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Hume said that if we had perfect or complete descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single valid "ought".
Selecter  #310878  Fri, 05 Jan 07 06:35 PM
Ok, now is not used only in the present continuous. But what about future tenses?
"They will be waking up now"

My logic tells me that now is at the present, then is in the future and in the past.
  
pieanne  #310879  Fri, 05 Jan 07 06:35 PM

 Selecter wrote:
Mr. Grinch had stolen all the presents in the town and yelled: "They will be waking up now"
Isn't now only for the present continuous?

Apart from being used with verbs that don't usually take the (present) continuous form, "now" can be used in the meaning of "any minute", or "in a short while"

  
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I'm glad to help, but I'm not a native! And please excuse my typos...
Selecter  #310882  Fri, 05 Jan 07 06:41 PM
Is it from spoken english?

Here's what I've found:
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CalifJim  #310914  Fri, 05 Jan 07 08:48 PM
In my opinion this is the will of probability, not the will of the future.

They will be waking up now = They are probably waking up now.

It simultaneously has a component like the will of habitual action.

He will roll his eyes when he doesn't believe what you say. = He always/usually rolls his eyes ...

Hence,

They will be waking up now = They are probably waking up now, because/as they usually do at this time.

CJ

  
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Selecter  #311133  Sat, 06 Jan 07 12:54 PM
Thanks, CalifJim! :-)
I've heard about "will in this context" in sentences like this one: He would come here once in a week in the olden days
  
CalifJim  #311447  Sat, 06 Jan 07 05:49 PM
He would come here once in a week ...
Yes, exactly.  Habitual would is, of course, the past tense of habitual willSmile [:)]

CJ

  
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