ESL General English Grammar Questions

Re: tense - why wrong?

Grammar Geek — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:52:58 GMT

New2grammar

IIt's grammaticaly strange but usage wise is perfect. Try to FEEL it instead of following the rules. :)

If you can do that, you are REALLY learning the language!!

Re: tense - why wrong?

New2grammar — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:24:53 GMT

I totally agree with Kooyen about "The rule you usually find is actually "no present perfect with a specific point in time". after GG recently corrected my thinking that the same rule applied to past perfect.

< At 7pm> I have read the paper this morning * (Wrong!)

I had read the paper that morning (Correct)

I was surprised when GG pointed out my mistake but after thinking about it, it makes sense. It's grammaticaly strange but usage wise is perfect. Try to FEEL it instead of following the rules. :)

Re: tense - why wrong?

Kooyeen — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:56:46 GMT

Applicant: Hello. I'm here for that job for which you need a technician. My grammar is good. For example, I never end a sentence with a preposition. *smile*
Employer: Oh, that don't matter. *smile* We gotta do some stuff with computers, websites, y'know, crap like that. *light a cigar* *cough* Really, that ain't no problem... *smile*

Anyway, the rule "no past perfect with a specific point in time" doesn't exist in any ESL book. The rule you usually find is actually "no present perfect with a specific point in time". Nothing is said about the past perfect, which is perfectly ok even when we want to refer to very specific points in time. Sometimes it's even necessary:

I was so shocked. I had just checked it a few seconds before, and it was there. Then I turned my head and it was gone. There's a ghost there, trust me.
If I'm not mistaken, you can't use a simple past there, and say "I just checked". I guess it's because of that "just". Right?

Re: tense - why wrong?

CalifJim — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:48:07 GMT

26TMNTJG2PG
A job applicant using the sentence, "I like employers that (instead of who) take good care of their employees", is facing a risk of his/her application being turned down should his/her prospective employer consider such use (of 'that') as inappropriate; and the applicant will be left with no chance to defend himself/herself since normally no reason will be given for the rejection.

This claim is outrageously "over-the-top"!!! No employer in his right mind would reject a candidate on the basis of a single word. Employers are much more interested in whether the candidate can do the job. Word choice is not at issue in 99.9% of jobs typically available to job seekers. (The 0.1% represents jobs as editors and the like.) Barely a single employer in ten thousand is even aware of a difference between who and that in the context referenced -- and even those would have to have the issue specifically brought to their attention before they might notice that the prospective employee had used one or the other in the context of an interview.

Re: tense - why wrong?

Mr Wordy — Fri, 30 May 2008 13:09:14 GMT

Anonymous

Thank you, all.

Please tell me why this is wrong if it is indeed wrong. The sentence from the orignal post:

Yesterday we had eaten pizza but later ate sandwiches

Let me add my two cents' worth. If I wasn't concentrating on analysing this sentence to death I would be happy to understand it to mean that yesterday we ate pizza, then some time later we ate sandwiches, and (because of the "but") it was somehow contrasting or unexpected that we did so (for example, because it might be thought that we were already full after the pizza).

Now, switching into picky mode, "Yesterday we had eaten pizza" places us yesterday some time after we ate the pizza. Then we read "later", which places us forward in time from the point we were previously talking about. Semantically we want this "point we were previously talking about" to be the time that we ate the pizza, but because of the "had eaten" construction it actually isn't: it's some unspecified time after we ate the pizza, which might potentially even include the time at which we ate the sandwiches, in which case it's not "later" at all. The time-shifting arguably becomes somewhat confused and illogical.

It's a tricky one to get your head round though, and I'm not surprised that different people seem to have different opinions.

Re: tense - why wrong?

Grammar Geek — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:55:00 GMT

26TMNTJG2PG
Why must we choose a way that infringes grammatical rules?

I think you are missing the point that this "rule" does not exist!

three disputed usages namely (1) 'that' for human antecedent (without any explanation), (2) split infinitive (with convincing reasonings) and (3) ending a sentence with a preposition (quoting Winston Churchill).

1) Although avoiding "that" for people is a style that I follow myself, you'll find MANY threads in this very forum that do not support insisting on this "rule" and citations going back hundreds of years using "that" for people.

2) This "rule" is now so antiquated that only the most pendantic would consider it wrong.

3) This "rule" NEVER existed and how you can say that quoting someone directly shows misuse is another oddity.

You would, perhaps, better help English learners by helping them sound natural, and not finding arcane or outright ficticious "rules" that they violate.

Re: tense - why wrong?

26TMNTJG2PG — Fri, 30 May 2008 10:16:53 GMT

The past perfect tense serves only to place a narration in the "more distant past," without determining its particular time or duration, as follows: "He had risen early that morning and had drunk coffee earlier than usual. – Wikipedia. There are many ways to express an idea. Why must we choose a way that infringes grammatical rules? How do you do it?
Easy.
Yesterday we finished our lunch and then Tom arrived. Yesterday we finished our lunch. Then Tom arrived.
Are they not equally good, if not better?
Notice that I used 'Easy' above. I say it is a sentence or a paragraph. Do you agree?
You don't. Everybody knows that "A sentence must have a verb and can stand on its own"; but then so many famous writers use this so-called effective style of writing (at the expense of grammatical rules) in newspaper articles and books including reference books teaching their users to speak and write better English.
"A sentence must have a verb and can stand on its own" has become a schoolroom rule. If you engage yourself in formal writing or if you are a student, are you not inclined to follow this rule?A job applicant using the sentence, "I like employers that (instead of who) take good care of their employees", is facing a risk of his/her application being turned down should his/her prospective employer consider such use (of 'that') as inappropriate; and the applicant will be left with no chance to defend himself/herself since normally no reason will be given for the rejection. 'That' for human antecedent is a disputed usage. If I use the word 'unidiomatic' in my thesis for a degree, I am facing the danger of marks being deducted for such usage because 'unidiomatic' cannot be found in online dictionaries but it is used in Wikipedia. What I am stressing is that if you don't follow the rules, there may be a cost to bear.Coincidentally, there is an article titled "Position matters" by Dr Lim Chin Lam in the popular national English daily today which article somewhat talks about the importance of following grammatical rules and which article, however, has three disputed usages namely (1) 'that' for human antecedent (without any explanation), (2) split infinitive (with convincing reasonings) and (3) ending a sentence with a preposition (quoting Winston Churchill).
HTH. HAND.

Re: tense - why wrong?

Terryxpress — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:00:01 GMT

I think CalifJim missed the point. We had been told there was an inviolate rule and I replied to give one more example where this 'rule', if we call it that, does not apply. I forgot, as I browsed, that I was not signed in, and so my post was Anon. It was the post re the World Court quashing.

Re: tense - why wrong?

Terryxpress — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:52:59 GMT

Yesterday we had eaten pizza but later ate sandwiches

the 'yesterday' is irrelevant to the discussion - that is just specific detail. The tense alone places it (i) sometime in the past and tells us that (ii) something else later in time is going to occur.

So in effect, the sentence is saying:

(Yesterday) we had eaten pizza and/but/then later but later ate sandwiches.

You would need to write:

Yesterday we had eaten pizza but then ate sandwiches

or Yesterday we ate pizza but/and later ate sandwiches as well.

Re: tense - why wrong?

CalifJim — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:41:04 GMT

Anonymous
How about this: "The World Court today threw out the conviction of a minor and ordered his immediate release. The High Court had on July 1, 2003, found the boy, then aged 12, guilty of murdering the 11-year-old girl at her house in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur, by stabbing her 20 times with a sharp object on May 30, 2002"

Perfectly grammatical. As I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, the past perfect is the tense for cases when the events are not being told in the order in which they occurred.

Actual order of events: The High Court found the boy guilty. (Later,) the World Court threw out the conviction.

Told in reverse order:

The World Court today threw out the conviction of a 12-year-old boy. The High Court had found the boy guilty on July 1, 2003.

That the exact date is mentioned in the same clause as the past perfect tense is irrelevant. It's "before today". That's all that counts.

The restriction to cases where an exact time is not mentioned applies to the present perfect, not to the past perfect. For example, the following is incorrect:

*The High Court has found the boy guilty on July 1, 2003.

Re: tense - why wrong?

CalifJim — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:25:26 GMT

Yesterday, we had just finished our lunch when the police stormed the house.

26TMNTJG2PG
The past perfect is not to be used for a definite point of time in the past (like yesterday)

yesterday applies to the whole period in which both the finishing of the lunch and the storming of the house occurred. Your rule does not apply.

In fact, the "rule" fails to apply in quite a few cases.

On August 15, we received a bill for the merchandise, which was surprising since we had already paid on July 23. [Past perfect with definite time. Completely grammatical.]

Re: tense - why wrong?

CalifJim — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:12:30 GMT

Anonymous
Please tell me why you think this is wrong. ... Yesterday we had eaten pizza but later ate sandwiches.

It is wrong because the events are being told in the order in which they occurred. A straight forward enumeration of the facts in the order in which they occurred does not normally require the past perfect. The past perfect is for "flash-backs".

We ate pizza first. Then we ate sandwiches.

Yesterday we ate pizza, but later we ate sandwiches.

If you don't tell the story with the events in the order in which they occurred, you may need the past perfect.

Yesterday we ate sandwiches, although earlier we had eaten pizza as well.

Re: tense - why wrong?

Anonymous — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:41:41 GMT

Thank you, all.

Please tell me why this is wrong if it is indeed wrong. The sentence from the orignal post:

Yesterday we had eaten pizza but later ate sandwiches

Re: tense - why wrong?

Anonymous — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:01:14 GMT

Here is the 'blog' referred to:

StartFragment>

"The High Court had on July 1, 2003, found theboy, then aged 12, guilty of murdering the 11-year-old girl at her house inSentul, Kuala Lumpur, by stabbing her 20 times with a sharp object on May 30,2002" in the news proper on page N8. Both instances have seen the use ofthe past perfect tense instead of the simple past tense though a particularpast time has been mentioned in each. The past perfect or pluperfect tenseserves only to place a narration in the "more distant past," withoutdetermining its particular time or duration" as explained in.

How about this: "The World Court today threw out the conviction of a minor and ordered his immediate release. The High Court had on July 1, 2003, found the boy, then aged 12, guilty of murdering the 11-year-old girl at her house in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur, by stabbing her 20 times with a sharp object on May 30, 2002"

In depends on the context and the perspective of the speaker.

Re: tense - why wrong?

Clive — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:54:42 GMT

Hi,

Let's simplify the example a bit more.

Yesterday we had finished our lunch when Tom arrived. This is perfectly acceptable, and the Past Perfect makes the sequence of events clear.

Yesterday we finished our lunch when Tom arrived. This sounds like we finished our lunch after Tom arrived.

'Yesterday' here is not a point in time, but a period during which different events can occur.

Learning "rules" is helpful, but I think that one must beware of over-applying them in situations that they were not meant to describe.

Best wishes, Clive