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  1. He has found his keys again since he came home.

  2. He has written another poem since he came home.

Because 'found' and 'written' are 'accomplishment' and 'achievement' respectively , they cannot be used with 'ever since' but can be with 'since'.

From What's the difference Nuance between Ever Since and Since

Since that day, he has become a different person.

With "since", and no "ever", I can write a sentence that implies that he has changed somehow between then and now, but I don't say when. He could have changed three days after "that day", or it could have been yesterday. (This sentence also implies that the change happened because of some reason unrelated to "that day".)

In the case of sentence above, when an achievement verb is used with 'since',does this mean the interval between 'then' and 'now' is extremly small like the effect of 'recently'?

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  • On the contrary - lacking other context, I would assume that something happened on "that day" to cause him to develop into a "different person".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Feb 22 at 10:46
  • @Kate Bunting Not the 'become a different person' clause. I want to figure it out whether 'since' +'achievement/accomplishment' verbs have the effect of 'recently'.
    – Mr. Wang
    Commented Feb 22 at 11:27
  • You said "This sentence also implies that the change happened because of some reason unrelated to "that day"." It doesn't - it implies that the events of "that day" either caused or started the change of personality. There is no way of knowing whether the change was sudden or gradual.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Feb 22 at 11:51
  • @Kate Bunting So,why 'He has written another poem ever since he came back. ' is ungrammatical,whereas 'He has written another poem since he came back.' is grammatical?
    – Mr. Wang
    Commented Feb 22 at 13:20
  • Because ever since implies something ongoing. You could use ever since in the sentence about 'becoming a different person' but not for a single action (writing a poem). But you could say "He has been writing poetry ever since he came back".
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Feb 22 at 15:33

1 Answer 1

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He has written another poem.

Yes, that sentence entails some notion of recency even without a time-phrase. He wrote one or more poems in the past. And at some time between then and now, he wrote another one.

But the interval is unknown. It could be in the last week or in the last year or in the last decade. The idea is that it is a "new" poem, that is, one the listener or reader is not aware of (so the speaker believes).

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  • So, 'since' +'achievement/accomplishment' verbs have the effect of 'recently'? When the combination is used ,the writter mainly means 'recently'?
    – Mr. Wang
    Commented Feb 22 at 11:28
  • No. It depends on what is said. "He has written many poems since his first book appeared 40 years ago." Those many poems are more recent than the first book, but not necessarily "recent" in the sense of "published in the past few months or the past year". Whereas if I say, today, February 22nd, "He has written several poems since January" it would mean "during the month of February".
    – TimR
    Commented Feb 22 at 11:49
  • since in and of itself does not express recency; it introduces a phrase that gives a terminus a quo.
    – TimR
    Commented Feb 22 at 11:55
  • So,why 'He has written another poem ever since he came back. ' is ungrammatical,whereas 'He has written another poem since he came back.' is grammatical?
    – Mr. Wang
    Commented Feb 22 at 13:20
  • Ever since he came back, he has been uninspired. ever since {point-in-time phrase} could be paraphrased as "at all times after {point-in-time phrase}". It refers to time as a continuum and does not establish a terminus a quo.
    – TimR
    Commented Feb 22 at 13:47

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