Subj : A question about tenses
To   : Ardith Hinton
From : Anton Shepelev
Date : Sun May 31 2020 02:15:46

Ardith Hinton to Anton Shepelev:

> 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.  :-)

Then I won't pursue this quotidian matter any futher. But may I
make so bold as to question the grammar in the quoted sentence?
Feel free to ignore my questions if I may not. They are:

1. Is it correct to use "but.. which" without a prior occurence of
   "which" in the sentence?

2. Is it correct to express the continued use of these items in the
   present progressive tense? This distinction causes me serious
   doubts in my own writing, but in your case I should without
   vaccilation say: "and we still use all of them."

> 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
> AS> adherence, 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.

Here is another example, which I encoutered but five minutes ago, in
an early short story by Peter Taylor, titled "Cookie". Cookie is a
black cook working for a married couple whom the author never names
(the text is Taylor's, but the typos mine:)

> Cookie put her hands under her apron, looked at her feet a
> moment, and then looked up at him, her own eyes wet. Her words
> came almost like screams: "Hattie say she seen ya! But she's a
> lier, ain't she, Boos-Man?
>
> Her mistress sat down, put one elbow on the table, and brought
> her napkin up to cover her face. "I'm disappointed in you,
> Cookie. Go to the kitchen."
>
> Cookie went through the swinging door without looking at her
> mistress.
>
> In a moment, his wife looked up at him and said, "I'm sorry. I'd
> not thought she was capable of a thing like that."

Mark the last sentece, which, again, is uttered by an apparently
educted person.

> 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,

How about this:

a. I forgot he was vegetarian. (he still is)
b. I forgot he had been vegetarian. (he has reverted)

Addison in a psalm of his addresses God:

           I knew thou wert not slow to hear,
           Nor impotent to save.

I don't think that substituting `art' for `wert' would harm the
sound and rythm so much as to justify `wert', were it
ungrammatical...

> and while I must have been taught that way I'm not sure there's a
> rule about it.

There ought to be one, but I am not now in the shape to find 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....  :-)

Hardly so, but such is the nature of causual conversation that one
has little time, and even less desire, to ensure grammatical
accuracy.

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