People in 'prescriptive' houses shouldn't throw 'prescriptive' stones, Mr Micawber. For some unknown reason, you fancy yourself a greater authority on English than Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum and other prominent scholars,

Hi, the problem here is the difference between simple past and present perfect. There are a lot of thread about that in this forum, if take a look around with the search function. Generally speaking, if you want to mention something that happened

Hello. You've invited someone for dinner at your house, and the phone rings. It's them! They say: I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to be a bit late. There's a lot of traffic. After you finish speaking on the phone, you say

The present perfect "has come" has very strong references with regard to the present time. Sentences like "The time has come.. , The storm has come etc seem to alert the reader with their strong message. Even if you say Has

Also would you say these are correct in both tenses? If you have lost/lost your book, please see Jim. Both are grammatically correct, but have lost is better when you consider that you're combining it with the advice about seeing Jim

You can. The towing company towed it. The car was towed to the garage. -- Simple past The towing company has towed it. The car has been towed to the garage. -- Present perfect. You are okay with the difference between past and present perfect

Thank you very much for correcting these grammar problems. For " The towing company towed the car to the garage." " The car was towed to the garage by the towing company." I would like to know why I cannot use

To repeat - in the US, it's almost always singular. Thanks y'all! See, I would've never known that if I hadn't asked...(I'm using present perfect and past perfect...and I don't even know how I did it.)

Thank you very much CJ, this is the best explanation I've ever had, these examples are great.

And you have a run-on sentence as well. 'Started' is not the past tense; it is the past participle. Please review 'present perfect' verb forms in your grammar book or on-line. Tennis season hasn't even started yet. Why are you so nervous?