Subj : to be or not to be that i
To   : alexander koryagin
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Wed Mar 21 2018 20:56:24

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

 MP>  "... it had ordered Thursday that the cables be
 MP>  tightened..."

 AH>  No problem there, AFAIC....  :-)

 ak>  So, how about the reported speech? Maybe should
 ak>  be "were tighted" afterr all?


 ak>  -----Beginning of the citation-----
 ak>  The engineering firm building the bridge at Florida
 ak>  International University had ordered Thursday that
 ak>  the cables be tightened, Mr. Rubio, a Republican,
 ak>  said in a late Thursday tweet. "They were being
 ak>  tightened when it collapsed," he said.
 ak>  ----- The end of the citation-----



           Ah... thankyou for the clarification.  I wasn't sure what you meant 
in your reply to Mike, but the rewording helped.

           According to my CANADIAN OXFORD DICTIONARY "reported speech" = what 
would have been referred to as an indirect quotation when I was in school.  It 
is somebody's account of what somebody else said, but the reporter is under no 
obligation to copy the words exactly & may alter verb tenses as s/he sees fit. 
In this context I think "that the cables be tightened" is correct, because the 
desired action had not yet been carried out at the time & the engineering firm 
probably issued instructions to a supervisor who delegated the task to others.

           "They were being tightened" is a direct quotation, or direct speech 
if that is what you prefer to call it.  In such cases quotation marks are used 
to indicate that what Mr. Rubio allegedly said (e.g.) is... to the best of the 
reporter's ability... an honest attempt to duplicate exactly what he said.  At 
the time the incident in question occurred, the action of tightening the bolts
.... according to his account... was in progress but hadn't yet been completed. 
If you say "the cables were tightened" the meaning is IMHO somewhat ambiguous.

           From what I see here I'm quite content with the way Mr. Rubio & the 
reporter expressed themselves.  The situation is complicated by the use of the 
passive voice... which my instructors would have advised their students not to 
use if there's a reasonable alternative.  No doubt there will be lawsuits as a 
result of this incident & the courts will decide who is or is not at fault.  I 
don't blame the reporter for not mentioning names here, but I count on readers 
like you & Anton to fill me in on the names of verb tenses in English....  ;-)




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

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