Subj : A question about tenses
To   : Anton Shepelev
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Thu May 28 2020 17:02:22

Hi, Anton!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

AH>  I could add a story about some things a friend gave us
AH>  after his mother's death, but apparently you don't need
AH>  it....  :-)

AS>  I should fear to hear it -- what if the inheritance
AS>  turns out to have another magickal item?


           Nah.  Just a few ordinary household items made of xxx, yyy, and zzz
.... none with magic(k)al powers, but all of which we are still using.  :-)



AS>  It reminds me of a dialog line from a British horror story,

AH>  Note to Alexander:  dialog(ue) reflects the way the characters
AH>  in a story would speak & can't necessarily be taken as a guide
AH>  to proper usage.

AS>  Yes, and that woman is a British schoolteacher.


           Okay.  I imagine she'd know the rules of formal grammar....  :-))



AH>  If this woman thinks it's imperative that "forgot" agree with
AH>  "was" she may be adhering to a "rule" which native speakers
AH>  break routinely

AS>  Whithersoever I look, I see adherence, quite sticky adherence,
AS>  nigh sufficient to catch flies:

                           [...]

AS>  and so on. Where do they break the rule?


           I can't say they do & I see a reasonably broad selection of authors there.  I've caught myself speaking the same way over the last few evenings... when Dallas didn't catch me first.  In such circumstances we both find it more aesthetically pleasing if the verb tenses agree than if they don't.  But a lot of native speakers find it puzzling when one can't be sure e.g. what became of item xxx or who's still vegetarian in the absence of further data, and while I must have been taught that way I'm not sure there's a rule about it.

           We've often had people say to us, in casual conversation, "I didn't know you're a teacher."  I doubt they are the only people who do this....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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