Hi, You wrote: I learn from a grammar book that a small set of verbs of communication such as "tell", "say" and "hear" can be used in simple present tense even though the act of telling, saying or hearing happened in

GENRES There are two categories within the world of texts: fiction (invented) and non-fiction (non-invented). The down-categories - e.g. epic, lyric poetry and drama - are called genres. The concept "genre" descends from the Greek word

it would be nice to hear what the other native speakers have to say on this. According to Radford (Transformational Grammar): Direct speech: "Will I get a degree?" John wondered. Indirect speech: John wondered whether he would get a

My try: "If I were in New York, I would visit the current exhibition at the Metropolitian Museum," he said. This sentence means that he is not in New York at the time of speaking. He said that if he were in NY, he would visit the ... This

(sorry to repeat the post from another thread; I feel it's quite an important matter) Indeed, MrPedantic. Wrt #2: From the best authority, back-shifting (from present to past) in the subordinate isn't mandatory:

From the best authority, back-shifting (from present to past) in the subordinate isn't mandatory: ------ Finally, I give some examples in which the tense has not been adjusted to that of the chief verb: Shakespeare: I should be

The most general rules you'll find useful for now are these: Use direct speech when writing a story. Use indirect speech when having a conversation. I hope that helps. CJ

JTT: I'm back. As Jim mentioned in my absence, either would be okay. But what he didn't mention is that there are reasons we choose one or the other. Yoshi, the first thing you're going to have to re-learn is that the old "rule" you were taught