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A wonderful month for me!

In the book's context the mentioned phrase is used to describe the future time.

I guess it's possible to use the phrase also for present month. Right?

What about past time? Is it possible to use that expression about past time? I guess we need to use "was":

A wonderful month was for me!

It's interesting why we don't use "is" and "will be", but "was" is used if my guess is correct.

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    The original A wonderful month for me! doesn't include any time reference, so it could refer equally well to past, present, or future.
    – stangdon
    Aug 1, 2022 at 21:36
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    Your guess is incorrect. We would not say 'A wonderful month was for me!' You can say 'It was/is/will be a wonderful month for me! Aug 1, 2022 at 21:49

2 Answers 2

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The noun phrase "A wonderful month for me" doesn't contain any time reference. There is no tensed verb, nor is there a time phrase like "last year". It could refer to past, present or future.

Tell me about December 1955.

A wonderful month for me! My first child was born.

The fragment would be understood as "That was a wonderful month for me."

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  • Is it possible to use the phrase without "for someone": "A wonderful month! My first child was born." Does it sound idiomatic?
    – Sergei
    Aug 2, 2022 at 9:55
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    Sure, no problem
    – James K
    Aug 2, 2022 at 10:16
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As stangdon mentioned in the comments, the missing verb (and its tense) is meant to be inferred from context.

If the phrase was referring to the past, or to the present, it would still be written as A wonderful month for me.


It might help to consider that this isn't really a complete sentence. It's more of an interjection/exclamation.

The equivalent full sentence would be:

It will be a wonderful month for me!

The subject here is "it", and the verb is "will be".

If the context were in the past, the sentence would be:

It was a wonderful month for me!

And if it were in the present:

It is a wonderful month for me!

The entire "it is/will be/was" part, the subject and the verb, is dropped in all cases.

Grammatically, this construction is analogous to using a single adjective as an interjection, like "Good!" or "Nice!" or "Nasty!" or "Cool!".

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