Can we use past continuous tense to refer a past habit with adverbs of frequency words? For example:
He was going for a morning walk every day.
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2Interestingly, exactly the same example sentence came up a few days ago! ell.stackexchange.com/questions/123030/…– Damkerng T.Commented Mar 24, 2017 at 2:21
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Sorry, but adverbs of frequency are not linked to past habits or to past continuous at all.– LambieCommented Aug 21, 2019 at 19:34
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3Does this answer your question? What is the difference between "was going every day" and "would go every day"?– James KCommented May 10, 2021 at 18:21
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1 Answer
This is indeed correct. Past continuous can be used for referring to actions that habitually occurred in the past but now no longer occur. For example, "at the time, his marriage was a recent event, and he was having sex with his new bride two or three times every day". Or: "Before the main battles got started, the General was noted to be rigorously passing muster on his troops morning after morning". Or even: "Before the operation, he was not noted to be following his doctor's recommendations on diet assiduously or frequently." This is a completely acceptable usage.
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2Only your first example really matches the pattern. The others use the continuous infinitive as a complement of a different verb– equesCommented Sep 7, 2017 at 16:12