By Present tenses, Present perfect

are. What has happened to them in Modern English? There was no future tense in Old English even though the predecessor of will was sometimes used to indicate future action. Its meaning was "to want, to desire" and will has mostly lost this meaning. It is still present in some contexts,...

Thank you. It will take some time to reflect upon your response. As to your question of where I wanted to put a semicolon, it was in the underlined part. I was pretty sure a semicolon is appropriate but wanted to confirm. You changed the tense of the last sentence to present perfect; (semicolon...

Thank you so much.How would you divide this type of writing (diary or reflection piece?) into paragraphs, especially when the content of a possible paragraph is two or thre sentences long?You asked: I am starting to work on my two-month project on today this afternoon;, and when my nephew gets...

.1) we form the Present Perfect tense with "has/have"+ the past participle. It is used to show:a) actions that have been completed recently.-- Yes, that is one use 2) we form the Past Perfect Tense with "had" + the past participle. It is used to showa) an action that...

Hi Mentors, Tutors and Native English Speakers/writersCan i say: 1) we form the Present Perfect tense with "has/have" 2) we form the Past Perfect Tense with "had" + the past participle. It is used to show: ...

Then use the other one! Nobody's going to notice any difference anyway!The imperative can't influence anything in the past, so I associate a present tense, or a present perfect tense, with an imperative. You see, the simple past puts an imaginary wall between you and the event...

This strikes me as a philosophical question. Suppose we place a coin on an inclined table which has been fitted with an electric vibrator. We mount a videocamera above, looking perpendicularly at the table top, with no visible reference to the true horizontal. We turn on the vibrator and the...

As is the case with British English, whether an American uses the simple present or the present perfect often simply depends on how the speaker is viewing a past activity. That said, when either tense is possible according to the "usual rules", I think there is a noticeable tendency...

Interesting. The tense switch did not occur to me as a possible problem. There is certainly no implied if, as in if you (ever) dared to dream (such a situation) -- not to my ear.I would say it's an abbreviated way of saying situation that you have never dared to dream.never seems to...

He bought a parrot that the seller said it would repeat every word he uttered. Contented, he went home and but later found it didn't say a word. Furious, he went back to the owner and asked him what had happened. The owner answered that he had not lied (didn't lie OK??) to the man. The...