Which of these sentences is correct?
You mentioned having been in a hospital last year.
You mentioned being in a hospital last year.
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Edwin, you edited (unintentionally) in a way that made my answer no longer correct, because you changed "in a hospital" to "in hospital". Since the original included the determiner before "hospital" in both examples, shouldn't your edit as well? (In editing my answer—which I must do regardless—I just want to edit it to reflect the actual question as edited.) The system won't let me make such a small edit as to just add "a" before both instances of "hospital".– TreyCommented Apr 2, 2017 at 21:44
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@Trey I put "a" before each "hospital".– Dan BronCommented Apr 2, 2017 at 21:55
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@DanBron Thanks! What privilege gives you the ability to make such small edits? Searching the help docs, I can't find it.– TreyCommented Apr 2, 2017 at 21:58
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1@Trey It's called edit questions and answers and means I can make arbitrary edits which are applied immediately, without needing review. You will earn it at 2,000 rep, which seems like a lot, but happens faster than you'd expect.– Dan BronCommented Apr 2, 2017 at 22:04
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1@EdwinAshworth They were in the OP's original post, and that's enough for me. The more non-cosmetic changes we introduce to a post, the higher the risk we put words in OP's mouth. Plus, changing it from its original formulation breaks answers based on that formulation. It's not backwards-compatible.– Dan BronCommented Apr 2, 2017 at 23:36
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1 Answer
There's a very subtle difference between
- You mentioned having been in a hospital last year.
vs.
- You mentioned being in a hospital last year.
The two are both correct and mean almost exactly the same thing. #1 is a "past perfect" while #2 is "imperfective" — these are differences in aspect. Consider what happens when you add the word since to each of these (which would change the meaning to include current hospitalization):
You mentioned having been in a hospital since last year.
You mentioned being in a hospital since last year.
#3 would connote duration and would focus on the continuing nature of the hospitalization. #4 would connote ongoing activity and would focus on the habitual state of hospitalization.
These are very fuzzy distinctions, as you can see, so the two sentences #1 and #2 are functionally nearly identical.
In context, however, #1 would more fluently introduce a topic post-hospitalization, while #2 would more fluently introduce a topic about the hospitalization. For instance:
You mentioned having been in a hospital last year. Why were you hospitalized?
You mentioned being in a hospital last year. Were the nurses pleasant?
You could swap the second sentences of each, but they're more comfortable being introduced as above rather than
*7. You mentioned having been in a hospital last year. Were the nurses pleasant?
*8. You mentioned being in a hospital last year. Why were you hospitalized?
There's a difference, but it's an extraordinarily slight distinction. The sentences are basically interchangeable.
