Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

Actually the "inspector" sentence is ambiguous. On one reading he
finds that the joints are not properly cemented, and then tests the
drain. The paraphrase would be "at the time (or just after)". But I
guess the intended meaning was that he tested first, "at which time
(or just after)" he found that..etc. This doesn't seem to me like a
very important difference. "When" simply indicates a time coordination
between two events or situations. The precise temporal relations need
to be filled in by a lot of context and real world knowledge. If you
want to be extremely precise, you have to use more than just "when".

But your original examples illustrate a more interesting difference.
"We were smoking our pipes when the door opened..." could be used in
the normal way of "when"-connected sentences, for example in giving a
statement later to the police who are trying to establish the sequence
of events. The police know that the door opened and want you to tell
them what you were doing at that moment. But Poe is using it simply as
a way of connecting two items in a narrative sequence. The readers do
not know the door is going to open until Poe tells them, using a
subordinate clause to do so. This is a very literary device. I don't
think an ordinary person relating an experience would use it; they
would say "We were smoking our pipes, and (then) the door opened".

So I agree with chance that there are two rather different uses of
"when" illustrated in those sentences.

Ross Clark

Not if the "when" clause precedes the other clause.  "When you close
the door, be sure to lock it."

It does!  I don't think so. Whether you mean within the sentence and
paragraph or you mean in order by time, it can refer to any time,
depending on the rest of the sentence.

You'd have to show me a sentence to convince me they aren't the same.
And certainly to convince me that "at which time" is more exact than
"when" or "at the time".  They can all be exact, and they can all be
approximate, depending on the facts, the intention, and the rest of
the sentence.

As Peter says, "Why don't we ask "chance" (or, say, Bart) whether the
Korean language has more than one temporal conjunction, so s/he is
looking for a distinction made in his/her language that isn't
grammaticalized in English?"  Yes, why don't we?

One refers backwards, and the other one forward, yes?  But even if
that's correct, and I don't read it in the OED definition, it doesn't
have anything to do with mm's argument, as potentially the 'when' could
refer forwards or backwards. As for 'invariably' we could use an
example like 'when you heat water it boils' but I don't see one like
that in the OED.

I think there is a distinction to be made between your two examples,
but it's not about which direction the 'when' is pointing to it the
sentence.

Both examples contrast simple past and past continuous (aka past
progressive) forms.  In EFL/ESL teaching we often use an example
sentence like the one from Poe to introduce usage of the past
continuous.  We say that the past continuous sets the scene by
describing what's happening over a period of passing time, while the
simple past describes a point event which happens during this time.
Here's an example from a popular[1] course book:

"In my dream I was watching TV when the Queen knocked at the door".

Many teachers will represent this with a diagram - I hope this works in
text:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
                             ^
                     The Queen knocked at the door.

This is what's happening in your first example:

"We were smoking our pipes and talking when the door of his apartment
opened."

- and potentially we went right on talking and smoking while the cop
stood there.

But the second example is more problematic:

"Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau."

As this suggests both events could have happening at the same time
(though this isn't essential and the point event during a continuous
event thing works just as well) -

"Rebekah was listening when Isaac was speaking to his son Esau."

My first reaction to this was to wonder if this quote was from the King
James version and thus a slightly strange or archaic usage, and Google
it.  But what do you actually get as the first three results?

"Now Rebekah was listening *as* Isaac spoke to his son Esau."

and

"Rebekah was listening *while* Isaac spoke to his son Esau." (x2)

There you go.  Makes ya think, really.

DC [1] not popular with me.
--

In any sentence ever uttered, can you use either of those two words
without changing the meaning of the sentence the slightest bit?

?? You're a native speaker of Korean, right? Does that mean that you
can understand Japanese?

Have you ever studied Japanese?

Well, let me give you just a little clue at the answer to your question,
in the form of part
of your original answer to my first question (I'll offset it with rows
of "*"):

******************************************************

******************************************************

It seems to me that J. toki-ni works for both sentences. For the first,
"... toki-ni, (totsuzen) ..." or (breaking into two sentences, and
starting the second) "Sono toki-ni (totsuzen), ..." / "Totsuzen, ..."

What Japanese word seems a better match for "ceok" that "toki"?

Bart Mathias