Search results for 'tag:Expressions tag:Past tenses' matching tags 'Expressions' and 'Past tenses'

Re: I am having trouble with the tenses in my essay. Any proof reading help would be appreciated or revisions.

Bushee — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:12:40 GMT

You had too many spaces between Leet and ","
My grandmother, Julie Lovins, put everything on the line for her job, including her life. She worked for the Leet Psychiatric Clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, and flew to various locations with Dr. Leet, a psychiatrist, to help patients. Dr. Leet had a contract with the United Mine Workers Psychiatric clinic and needed to check up on patients in many locations. To get to these locations, Dr. Leet flew my grandmother on a small plane. As a traveling social worker, Lovins experienced one devastating plane ride to the Mine Workers Psychiatric Clinic. Little did she know, her brush with death would inspire a disabled mine worker to live his life with a purpose.

You have a few present tenses that would work better with past tenses in the next paragraphs.

Arriving at the clinic, Dr. Leet was rushed to the Emergency Room. As Ms. Lovins started to regain consciousness, she checked up on Dr. Leet. âHe is going to be fine. Itâs amazing he survived with only a broken arm,â said a nurse. Relieved and uninjured, Ms. Lovins remembered what she had come to the clinic to do. âIâm on a mission to help the disabled miners who are suffering,â thought Ms. Lovins. As Ms. Lovins is about to step onto an elevator to the third floor, where the minerâs rooms are located, she noticed a man with a pained expression. Approaching the man, she saw his mangled leg, and smelled the scent of someone about to give up on life. Noticing a photo of his family in his hand, Ms. Lovins asks him about them. The crippled man replies, âThis is my family, but Iâm ashamed that they will not like me anymore because Iâm useless now.â

Not willing to accept this answer, Ms. Lovins told the crippled miner that everyone lives for a purpose. âI put my life on the line today to help save others. Somehow, I survived and have come here to fulfill my purpose for living,â said Ms. Lovins. With a new outlook on life, the crippled miner shot Ms. Lovins a gleaming smile. âYou know what, you are right! My life has a purpose and I still have time to live it,â exclaimed the miner. The miner rushed to his room and called his family. After speaking to his family, the miner once again approaches Ms. Lovins. âI just wantedâ¦wanted you to know that your brush with death todayâ¦. well, has given me the courage to reunite with my family, and to use my experience as a motivation for others.â

I hope I was helpful, Bushee.

Re: Structure of sentence

lisadove — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:21:33 GMT

16: is known as (passive structure; active form: We know Boston as the Hub...)

17. storing, erasing and retrieving (These are parallel and should be in the same form.)

18. Professor Andom Iyassou ("Professor" is a title. If Andom Iyassou is one person, "professor" must be singular.)

19. one mile high (height is a noun; high is an adjective)

20. a symbol (tree is singular and a is singular, so symbol should be singular)

21. as efficient as (the conventional structure for a comparison. "so efficient as" could be used as follows: The software is not so efficient as to make the previous version obsolete.)

22. I suspect you made a mistake in copying this item. I would guess (C) "for a great deal of their content on the majority of their pages."

23. very much alike. (alike is not a noun; only nouns can be preceded by the.)

24. in seconds (we use in with expressions of time: in a few days, in a million years, in about an hour.)

25. Boggs hit a grand slam (making is used in the first part because it's the object of the preposition after, so it must be in noun [gerund?] form. The main clause is "Wade Boggs hit [past tense] a grand slam for the Red Sox.")

I don't have time to do more; perhaps someone else will finish...

Re: Tenses

HexFumes1 — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:58:39 GMT

Cheers Optilang. But you know we can use the expression "for" with simple past tense as well if the action took place for a period in the past. What do you think?

Re: let out//reveal//lift the lid on the secret

Avangi — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:54:24 GMT

There's an expression, "to let the cat out of the bag," which applies here. Monica must have let the cat out of the bag. OR (imperative) Don't let the cat out of the bag.

I hear, "Keep a lid on it," "Keep the lid on it," but I don't often hear about removing the lid. I suppose it's possible, but again, it would have to be in past tense. "It must be / have been Monica who lifted the lid on this."

- A.

Re: Hey Guys, Need Help

CalifJim — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:07:55 GMT

hellosir66
my friends seems to think that this sentence, "It's time you learn English.", is correct.

It's acceptable, but after the expression "It's time" the past tense (with present meaning) is the usual pattern.

Re: Hey Guys, Need Help

Tanit — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:37:47 GMT

Hi,

New2grammar
Could you try to convince me why the abrupt change of tense makes sense?

Why should it make sense? After all, we're talking about English grammar!
Anyway, somebody says it's an instance of unreal past ...

BBC Learning English

We sometimes use past tenses to describe things in the present or future that are imagined or unreal.
It's time we went.
We are using It's time... here to say that something is not happening, but it should be happening. Compare also the following:
It's time we left. Our son will be home soon and he doesn't have a house key.
It's about time you started looking for a job. You can't depend on us all the time. It's high time you started to fend for yourself.

...we can use the construction it's time to or it's time for + object + to as alternatives to the unreal use of past forms to express this idea:
It's time for you to think seriously about what you want to do in your life.
It's time you thought seriously about what you want to achieve in your life.
It's time to reflect on how you want your life to proceed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv347.shtml

UNREAL PAST

The past tense is sometimes used in English to refer to an 'unreal' situation. So, although the tense is the past, we are usually talking about the present, e.g. in a Type 2 conditional sentence:
If an elephant and a mouse fell in love, they would have many problems.
Although fell is in the past tense, we are talking about a hypothetical situation that might exist now or at any time, but we are not referring to the past. We call this use the unreal past.
Other situations where this occurs are:

after other words and expressions like'if'(supposing, if only, what if);
after the verb 'to wish';
after the expression 'I'd rather..'
(http://www.edufind.com/English/Grammar/IF10.cfm)

... and somebody says it's subjunctive. See also:
http://www.englishforums.com/English/ChangingTenses/dqcdx/post.htm
http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhichSentencesAreCorrect/zjbhp/post.htm

Re: Please clarify me this slang phrase.

RayH — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:29:24 GMT

JCDenton
My bet is that did step in it = screw something.It's new phrase for me, so I would like to have an confirmation from you.

You're pretty much right. It means to make an embarrassing and public mistake. I checked several on-line references and didn't find any that define this expression.
Note that it doesn't have to be "did step in it". In fact, your examples can be modified:

Definitely, Obama stepped in it when he started acting like a guilty party; however, the media is complicit in feeling the need to run to his defense.
You stepped in it, and it blew back on you.
Bush really did step in it, big time. Past tense here is probably right if the rest of the context matches.

You could even say "you stepped in big time" for a really major blunder.

Re: Reported Speech

miriam — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:36:47 GMT

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 without a doubt: # 7. The sentence in direct speech uses the present continuous, and the reporting verb (added) is in the past tense, so it really makes no sense to use a construction with "will" to report that statement. You should either keep the same tense (present continuous) or change to past continuous. Sentence #6 has a similar mistake. The decision, however, is sometimes difficult to make since I have no idea when the original statements were made, when they are/were reported, and, also important, whether what was said still applies at the time of reporting or it doesn't.

The rest of the sentences seem OK in general, except for a few details, such as dates and time references, and person changes. For example, in # 8 you retain "a year ago" instead of changing it to some other expression like "the year before" or "the previous year". Again, though, that would depend on several variables, the moment of reporting among them. Also, in #10 you changed "our customers" to "his customers" (why not "their" customers?).

And you're not consistent with verb changes. In # 1, you shifted from the present perfect to the past perfect. But then, in other sentences, such as # 2, you retained the tense from the sentence in direct speech.

I know this isn't much help, but it will -hopefully- point you in the direction of your mistakes and/or inconsistencies.

When we're taught indirect speech, we're told to remember the "golden rule": change verb tenses. But the truth is that it always depends on the context and the content itself, on the people speaking and the time of speaking.

Give these sentences another try, please, and let's see what happens?

Miriam

Re: Would you mind if I "opened" the window?

CalifJim — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:39:32 GMT

The past tense is used for more than just indicating past time. It's used in an if-clause that goes with a would-clause. This is the general rule.

That said, the formulas Would you mind if I ...? Would it bother you if I ... ? and similar expressions are special cases where, informally, the present tense often follows.

Re: got/gotten

Yankee — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:42:30 GMT

Fandorin
Hi. Yes, both of the words may be used. Simply "have(has) got" tend to be used side by side with have (has,had).
have(had,has) got = have(has,had). But the expression "had got" is rarely used in contemporary grammar.

Hi Fandorin

You seem to be mixing things up.

Angliholic's sentence is not an example of the idiomatic "to have got", which means basically the same thing as "to have" or "to possess".
In that idiom, it is not possible to change the word 'got' to 'gotten' -- not even in American English. It would be unusual to find "to have got" used in the past tense (i.e. had got).

Angliholic's sentence uses the verb "to get" in the past perfect. To form the past perfect of the verb "to get", you need had+gotten in AmE or had+got in BE.
The past perfect of the verb "to get" is in current use and is used just as often as the past perfect of any other verb.