By Dates, Present perfect

I'm not an expert on grammar or linguistics, but here are my thoughts as an ordinary native user of English. I hope I got all the grammatical terminology correct! I think that all verbs -- transitive or intransitive -- are able to form present perfect sentences: "He has died",...

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...

Hello. Sorry to hear you're feeling uncomfortable with this type of activity. But you're not alone: I would be, too!The sentences lack context, which makes it difficult to tell when tense changes are necessary and when they are not (among other things).There is one sentence that is wrong...

.We received the quotation from Michael on 10 March. However, ourgoods will be ready in the first week of April, so we willcontact him again to get the updated cost around the shipment date.Thank you for your follow-up and have a nice weekend.If you give a past date ('10 March'), you...

Newguest wrote: Hi I'd like to ask you about the passive voice. 1. People believe that the president was very shy as a child. The president is believed to have been very shy as a child. I'M WONDERING WHEN I CAN USE HAD BEEN? 2. People believed that the...

I answered your "anonymous" post. With 2007 not yet over, you can't use the past. The present perfect does work, but it would be even better with "so far" or "to date." 2007 may be almost over, but it's not over yet.

The whole sentence needs work, Teleo-- you cannot use present perfect when you have made reference to a specific past date (last month). Therefore, the had is mandatory. Hope and wish are still different, though, and take different tenses:I wish he had made it last month (he didn't)I hope he...

Anonymous wrote:Others may feel ok with the use of "ago with present perfect, but it hurts my ears and probably hurts the ears of the teacher who taught me how to use proper English 20 plus years ago.Hi Goodman,Your teacher was right to tell you not to let ago be near present perfect! My teacher...

Hoa Thai wrote: Hi Goodman, Maybe I should not touch your nerve again - You are so expressive and I am scared! (for your heart and for my embarrassment). Don't worry, I am all barks and I no bite! However, I must present my thought to find out what is wrong with it. Here I come. I haven’t...

Hello, Hoa Thai. As always, it's been interesting to read through your post! «The issue we have been dealing with here boils down to one question – “In one sentence, grammatically and semantically, could we use both simple past and present perfect for one item?”» I wouldn't say so,...