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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007a naive tense question
"He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he is married" or "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he was married" Which one is correct? Thanks > "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he is married" or > "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he was married" > > Which one is correct? Thanks Neither one seems acceptable to me. I'd say "He's always chatting up girls. He forgets that he's married" or "He's always chatting up girls. He's forgotten that he's married".  SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. "It has come to my attention that my opinions are not universally shared." Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, 23 Jan 2007; http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/ teranews charges a one-time US$3.95 setup fee -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com On 24 Jan 2007, christopher wrote > "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he is married" or > "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he was married" > > Which one is correct? Thanks I think "He is. . .he forgot" is where you're getting into trouble; the tenses should be consistent all the way through: "He is always chatting up girls. He forgets that he is married." or "He was always chatting up girls. He forgot that he was married." SignatureCheers, Harvey Canadian and British English, indiscriminately mixed For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van > "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he is married" (The spelling is "chatting", by the way.) This first version means that at some time in the past he developed amnesia, and he no longer remembers that he is still married. It also seems to suggest that nobody who knows him has yet told him that he has a wife. > "He is always chating up girls. He forgot that he was married" This suggests that he is no longer married, and that his divorce was so long ago that his former marriage is of no importance to him. If you changed the second sentence to the present tense, that would make a big difference to the meaning. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. Thanks for your reply! One more question, my teacher taught me that when I forget to bring my book in lessons, say "Sorry! I have forgotten to bring my book.". According to the examples above, I think I should say "Sorry! I forget to bring my book." Please advise!! christopher skrev: > Thanks for your reply! > > One more question, my teacher taught me that when I forget to bring my > book in lessons, say "Sorry! I have forgotten to bring my book.". > According to the examples above, I think I should say "Sorry! I forget > to bring my book." "I forgot ..." would be correct. "Forget" is wrong. > christopher skrev: >> Thanks for your reply! [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > "I forgot ..." would be correct. "Forget" is wrong. Christopher, your teacher's right: in this case we'd say "I have forgotten" or "I forgot". The earlier examples were of different situations, with different rules. The best thing is to make sure that you learn each step _thoroughly_ before moving on to the next one. That way more advanced idioms won't seem quite so confusing. We have a saying, "Don't run before you can walk". SignatureMike. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
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