46
votes
Accepted
Why does Obi-Wan use 'were' in "He wanted you to have it when you were old enough"?
Let's clear up some grammar points first.
Time clauses about the future never include "will", and almost always use a present tense:
When I am older, I'll be a doctor.
After I win, I'm ...
- 48.9k
38
votes
Accepted
Why do native speakers use the present continuous tense when talking about people in a picture? Why not the past continuous tense?
You can use the past tense, if you are talking about what the person who was photographed was doing.
But normally, when you look at a picture you describe the things in the picture in the present ...
- 36.3k
38
votes
Is it correct to say "My teacher yesterday was in Beijing."?
Both of those sentences are correct. They say roughly the same thing, but with slightly different emphases. The second makes the teacher's location yesterday more important.
My teacher yesterday was ...
- 7,103
28
votes
Is it correct to say "My teacher yesterday was in Beijing."?
In the sentence "My teacher yesterday was in Beijing", "yesterday" attaches to "teacher".
Hence it means:
"The teacher who was teaching us yesterday was in Beijing ...
- 5,248
25
votes
Past form of "make do"
Here is a definition of make do: conveniently, the only example is in the past tense:
We didn't have cupboards so we made do with boxes.
The correct past is made do with. Here is another typical ...
- 59.1k
23
votes
"Rollbacked" or "rolled back" the edit? And what about "double-click"?
In your examples
rollback
is a compound word consisting of the verb to roll and the preposition back.
It is similar to
turnoff
which is composed of to turn and off.
The past tenses are
...
- 66.2k
23
votes
Accepted
Why is past continuous wrong in this sentence?
I have spoken English for 50 years and I can say authoritatively that the idiomatic way to express what appears to be the meaning, that he happened to be a resident of France at some particular time ...
- 6,426
23
votes
"Tea drinking" vs. "tea drunk" in this context
Tea drinking and drinking tea are both phrases that refer to the custom of consuming a beverage made by immersing the leaves of certain plants in hot water. The gerund drinking fits equally well ...
- 25.7k
23
votes
Accepted
"My boss was furious with me and I have been fired" vs. "My boss was furious with me and I was fired"
The first thing to realise is that in most cases, whether or not to use the present perfect is a free choice: it depends on how you are choosing to relate the events to the present circumstances.
If ...
- 73.7k
20
votes
I (have) never asked that question before. - Americans sometimes drop the "have"?
At least for these statements, this isn't a matter of using simple past to mean present perfect.
Using simple past associates the statements with some sort of scope. For example, "I never said ...
- 309
19
votes
Past tense substitute for "current" or "actual"
You have a couple of issues.
You're calling the nurse a "current" wife when you don't really know if that's the case.
Someone who is "currently" a spouse to someone means that they are still married....
- 25.4k
17
votes
Accepted
"Rollbacked" or "rolled back" the edit? And what about "double-click"?
Tenses always apply to verbs, so to see where to apply it, you need to figure out which part of the compound (or hyphenated) word is the verb.
"Rollback" is a compound word, consisting of the verb "...
- 306
17
votes
Past tense substitute for "current" or "actual"
Catija has done a good job answering your question; however, I feel like someone should elaborate on how you aren't using former and latter in the standard way:
Jim had been married twice. His ...
J.R.♦
- 109k
17
votes
Perfect fit for a grammatical error
3 and 4 are both grammatically correct, though 4 is clearly the most natural, so it is the correct answer according to the wording of the question, "the most appropriate option".
4 is ...
- 48.9k
16
votes
"I sat a hundred evenings there"
Yes, I see no problem with that interpretation.
The value "a hundred" is likely to be understood as "an unspecified large number"
- 204k
15
votes
Accepted
English's imperfect tense and its imperfection
The technical term for the default aspect expressed by the English "past tense" is perfective—it expresses an action seen from the outside, as a whole. As you say, it implies that the action is "...
- 175k
15
votes
Accepted
Is adjective "backuped" correct?
The phrasal verb "back up" has been combined to make a noun "backup" or "backups". But the verb form still has its suffixes after "back", not after "up". The servers should be "backed up", not "...
- 24.1k
15
votes
My leg got most tired
Strictly speaking there's nothing wrong grammatically with this. What is unusual about it, and what makes it grate slightly to (at least this) native speaker, is that there is a clash of styles: "got" ...
- 593
14
votes
I was wondering vs. I am wondering vs. I wonder
"I was wondering" can be used to make indirect polite requests.
For example:
"I was wondering if I could borrow your book."
"I was wondering if you could drive me to the airport."
"I wonder" is not ...
- 151
14
votes
Accepted
Is 'I forget how to do something' correct?
I would say #1 or #2 is fine:
I forget how to do algebra: Puts the act of forgetting in the present. Maybe you do generally know it, but you can't remember right now, so you can't help.
I've ...
- 1,041
13
votes
Can I use future tense and past tense in one sentence with "if"?
As FumbleFingers mentions in his comment, this structure is fine and not uncommon. In English, we often modify the sentence to match a particular perspective, in this case the perspective of Elena, ...
- 88.1k
13
votes
Accepted
Had Begun vs Began
The answer should be began.
If it were had begun, then the sentence would need to continue to mention something else that happened at that time.
Such as:
Walker Lee had begun his career in hand-...
- 36.3k
13
votes
Why do native speakers use the present continuous tense when talking about people in a picture? Why not the past continuous tense?
When describing what is present in the picture we tend to use present tense:
That is granddad. He is wearing a hat.
The continuous form is used, although it might not be "logical", at any rate we ...
- 204k
12
votes
Accepted
Confusion about the use of the present simple in a story
There is a difference between telling a story and explaining what happens in a story. They are different. When we tell a story, we often use the past tense. We try to get our reader or listener ...
11
votes
Past tense substitute for "current" or "actual"
We interviewed him in the 1990s. His first wife was a high school teacher and his then current wife was the mayor of San Antonio.
The word then can be used adverbially to modify (temporally situate) ...
- 121k
11
votes
"Tea drinking" vs. "tea drunk" in this context
"Tea drunk" is not an idiom, and only makes sense with the meaning "[some] tea [which has been] drunk".
"Tea drinking" is a noun phrase, and its head is the verbal noun (gerund) "drinking". I would ...
- 73.7k
11
votes
Is it correct to say "My teacher yesterday was in Beijing."?
The other answers are correct and good. I just wanted to provide an example usage of this sentence that I felt went beyond a comment.
"Remote learning is great! My class has had guest teachers ...
- 552
11
votes
Difference between "is come" and "has come"
The time has come...
is standard English, and is the version that's used today.
On the other hand,
The time is come...
sounds weird today and uses the archaic 'to be come' construction.
Here is ...
- 1,051
10
votes
Accepted
hanged or hung?
From The Grammarist:
Hung is the past tense and past participle of hang in most of that
verb’s senses. For instance, yesterday you might have hung a picture
on the wall, hung a right turn, and ...
- 1,455
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