Timeline for "He didn't know where New Jersey was"
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 8, 2023 at 15:05 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | I agree with Greg Lee in an answer to a parallel question, << "I knew you are a kind man": I would [normally] say, instead, "I knew you were a kind man". >> "I knew then that you are a kind man" sounds far better than the barer version with 'logical' tenses. | |
| Jul 24, 2015 at 3:19 | comment | added | iamRR | @Cerberus --As you say "even the usage of 'want' is acceptable but only in a very informal context." Does it mean that even the usage of 'want' is grammatical ? OR the other way to phrase the question - Is it grammatical to say "He asked me if I want to opt for engineering training." ? | |
| Jul 16, 2015 at 1:16 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @iamRR: I don't encounter this a lot in major newspapers, but I cannot exclude that it should happen. However, as I said, the whole snippet you quoted is of a low quality, as evidenced by the missing article before particular college. I would not say it is not acceptable anywhere, except in a very informal context. A newspaper is usually not that place. At any rate, major newspapers are not paragons of proper style; they just hire people like you and me. Better look at literature or style books. | |
| Jul 16, 2015 at 0:44 | comment | added | iamRR | @Cerberus -- So you also encounter such minor 'slip ups' in newspapers. Well, I come across such mistakes a lot. So are these 'minor slip ups' acceptable or not because if reputed newspaper are using then it should be acceptable. Isn't it ? | |
| Jul 14, 2015 at 21:12 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @iamRR: I do think that should be wanted. The snippet is obviously written in a very informal style, but it is also sloppy; consider this: I did not dream about joining [a] particular college. I would not consider want acceptable in your snippet, but one sees all kinds of minor slip-ups in newspapers, especially in informal pieces like this. | |
| Jul 14, 2015 at 20:26 | comment | added | iamRR | @Cerberus -- Now my question is, don't you think it should be 'wanted' instead of 'want' ? And this is one such example, I find many of them. So are they missing something important or is 'want' also acceptable these days ? | |
| Jul 14, 2015 at 20:26 | comment | added | iamRR | @Cerberus -- Here is a snippet. Its from a famous newspaper. It reads "I did not know about MIT or Stanford. I did not dream about joining particular college. I almost never took decisions back then. My dad is cool, he does not believe that education is everything and he did not want me to only concentrate on studies. So, when joining 11th standard, he asked me if I want to opt for engineering traning." | |
| Jul 14, 2015 at 18:26 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @iamRR: Ah, well, newspapers are in some ways often non-standard in their language. Headlines often don't stick to normal grammar. Or the historic present can be used, etc. We'd need to see an example. | |
| Jul 14, 2015 at 15:02 | comment | added | iamRR | @Cerberus -- But why do I often notice in newspapers that there is no backshifting of tenses even if what was said is longer true at the time of reporting. And I have encountered innumerable times. I'm too confused | |
| Jul 7, 2015 at 21:38 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @iamRR: That is certainly not what he meant; he was just arguing about subtle issues regarding classification and terminology. He certainly would not condone that is. | |
| Jul 7, 2015 at 20:40 | comment | added | iamRR | @Cerberus -- Yeah I agree but John Lawler says there are no such 'sequence of tenses'. So by this logic even 'is' has to be correct. I'm lost. | |
| Jul 7, 2015 at 20:06 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @iamRR: No, that is would be wrong. This question is only about things that are true both in the past and at the time of speaking; your example is only true in the past, so you must use the past tense. | |
| Jul 7, 2015 at 19:43 | comment | added | iamRR | @JohnLawler -- You have been saying there are no such rules which says that past in the main clause is to be followed by the corresponding pats tense in the subordinate clause. Tell me, if what is said is no longer true then in that case, can present tense be used in subordinate clause. For example -- Suppose John tells me today : "I am hungry." 2 days later I happen to report his word to my friend. I say : "John said that he is hungry." So here is it correct to use 'is' ? | |
| Apr 20, 2014 at 2:56 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @JohnLawler: It is inscribed in most of us. I don't see how this is about conversational implicature in any way; it's just basic semantics. Of course there are constraints, and the well studied phenomenon we're talking about is one. Evidence is provided by the fast that so many people are surprised by the possibility of the past tense in such cases when they think about it. But I see this discussion going into no-man's land, and it's bed time for me. Much of language cannot easily be described by simple, black-or-white rules à la physics, it's fuzzy science (and not even always science). | |
| Apr 20, 2014 at 2:53 | comment | added | John Lawler | And where is this rule inscribed? It sounds like a Gricean implicature to me, and those are subject to well-known constraints. | |
| Apr 20, 2014 at 2:51 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @JohnLawler: The external rule is that, under relevant circumstances, one normally does not use a past tense to describe something that is also about the present. The violation of this rule is what makes it somewhat surprising to everyone. | |
| Apr 20, 2014 at 2:45 | comment | added | John Lawler | @Cerberus: There is no "external rule" to appeal to. Tenses are determined by the speaker. | |
| Apr 20, 2014 at 2:12 | comment | added | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | @JohnLawler: I don't see why not? If there are several possible options that are as of yet hard to predict, and one of those (the past tense) is surprising and contradicts an external rule, it makes sense to use a name for the phenomenon—especially if the surprising option often seems preferable. | |
| Apr 19, 2014 at 19:18 | comment | added | John Lawler | It's largely the invention of schoolteachers. And the fact that there are no good predictive rules to share, as well as the frequent occurrence of clueless questions like this (and the more recent one that links to this question) is evidence that there is no "sequence of tenses" rule in English. Otherwise one could do better than wave one's hands about it's "not always being logical". | |
| Jan 5, 2011 at 11:12 | vote | accept | sombe | ||
| Jan 5, 2011 at 9:32 | comment | added | RegDwigнt | Harmony, agreement, sequence, succession, you name it. | |
| Jan 5, 2011 at 0:07 | history | edited | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
added 29 characters in body
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| Jan 4, 2011 at 23:40 | history | answered | Cerberus - Reinstate Monica | CC BY-SA 2.5 |