0

What is the difference between these two sentences?

Suddenly kicked in the bar, Tony turned out to be so worked up.

Suddenly kicked in the bar, Tony turned out to have been so worked up.

Improve this question
1
  • I'm afraid this is too idiomatic for me to understand what you are trying to say. Could you add an explanation of exactly what happened and what became obvious ("turned out") in what order?
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Commented Oct 3, 2015 at 19:20

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Since Tony can be kicked in the shin or kicked in the groin, to say he was "kicked in the bar" creates some interference waves. We can fix that very easily:

Suddenly kicked while in the bar...

I think you mean "became" when you say "turned out to be".

Suddenly kicked while in the bar, Tony became so angry.

Since it takes at least a little while to get "worked up" (the "up" suggests a culmination) I've changed it to "angry", because "worked up" doesn't fit well with being kicked suddenly.

You could say:

Tony became worked up when he was kicked while in the bar and the person who kicked him did not apologize but instead started laughing.

"Turned out" like "worked up" also requires a passage of time. It refers to the discovery of a reason which for some period of time had not presented itself, or the supplanting of one reason by another.

Why did Tony get so angry at the bar?
-- It actually wasn't because he had been kicked suddenly, as everyone believed. It turned out to have been an overdose of steroids. He had "roid rage".

Improve this answer
2
  • Well..I got it..and I wish you could explicate my point as well..the difference between "turn up to be" and "turn up to have been". You could ignore my example and express that phrase puzzling me.
    – 오준수
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 22:45
  • Bobby's rash turned out to be chicken pox. Bobby's rash turned out to have been chicken pox. The difference: the first sentence would most likely be said by a parent whose child still has chicken pox, the second by a parent whose child had chicken pox at some time in the recent past, telling you something about what happened in the recent past. I hedge because "turned out" is a sort of storytelling verb since it involves the discovery of a true cause--and storytelling does not always follow tense rules. A narrator has freedom with time, even in conversation.
    – TimR
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 23:08

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .