Change possible habitual actions to indirect speech

Question

Hi I recently took an exam but got one wrong. However, I think that I'm right and the answer could be wrong.

The question

The elephant asked, "Mr. Crocodile, will you tell me what you have for dinner?"

( oh, and the elephant's a female and the crocodile is a male :) )

Edit Full paragraph ;

One day, she became curious about what crocodiles ate for dinner. So she went to the river to find a crocodile. At the river she met a crocodile. The elephant asked, "Mr. Crocodile, will you tell me what you have for dinner?"

I wrote

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what he has for dinner.

The answer is

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what he had for dinner.

I think what he has for dinner, in this case, is a habitual action so the answer should be "has" , not "had".

(I interpreted the question as " asking for what the crocodile normally has for dinner " is this wrong?)

Besides, the answer sounds like the crocodile already had dinner and the elephant is asking what he had, so the meaning has changed.

I think the answer is wrong, but before I challenge it, I would like to hear professional opinions.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

There are cases when backshifting is mandatory, cases when it is prohibited, and cases when it is optional.

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Mandatory:

When a past event is described, then backshifting is required.

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what he had for dinner on the night of the fourth.

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Prohibited:

When a general truth is described, then backshifting is not allowed.

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what people mean when they say "dinner."

But note that context can change a general truth to a specific reference and allow (or even necessitate) backshifting:

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what those particular people meant when they said "dinner" on the night of the fourth.

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Optional:

In the sentence in question, if something is habitual or still true, then you may use the present tense—it's optional. But backshifting is still acceptable too, even if the present tense is more common.

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what he has for dinner.
The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what he had for dinner.

So, in this case, even if it's Mr. Crocodile's ongoing eating habits that are being discussed, backshifting is still okay. Although using the present tense is likely more common in this situation—it's not a requirement.

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Therefore, in terms of the sentence in the exam, both backshifting and not backshifting are acceptable—assuming that the subject is something habitual (which seems to be the case here).

However, if the exam requires that only one answer be given, then the backshifted version will always be correct.

While I don't think your answer was wrong in terms of grammar (and is actually the more common version), it might still have been wrong in terms of the parameters of the exam requiring a specific single answer. (In other words, the single answer that will always be correct regardless of interpretation.)

You can object in principle, but you can't really object in practice. (Still, it might be worth the attempt.)

Answer 2

I am afraid the correct form of indirect speech would be:

The elephant asked if Mr. Crocodile would tell her what he had for dinner.

There are certain rules when transforming from direct to indirect speech. This would be the rules for tenses:

source

Answer 3

You mention habitual actions in your title, so I assume the elephant is asking about crocodile's usual fare.

If you backshift to had there, the statement about the question is ambiguous. It could refer to a specific dinner or to his usual fare. You'd have to report something like this if you wanted to use had and were trying to refer to his usual fare (and wanted to make that fact clear):

... asked what he had for dinner on most nights.

... asked what he usually had for dinner

whereas with has there would be no need to add the word "usually" or the phrase "on most nights". It would clearly refer to his usual meal.