At 10:34 AM 4/5/2003 +0100, you wrote:
Dear All
Every now and then I feel this almost evangelical desire to help those in
need.
snip
Present tense: "I lay a table."; Past: "I laid ...."; Perfect: "I have
laid ...."; Pluperfect: "I had laid ...."
This reminds me of the story about the guy who asked the Boston taxi driver
"Do you know where I might get scrod?" to which the driver responded, "Yes,
but I've never been asked that in the future conditional mood." (Sorry,
that doesn't make me feel very evangelical.)
In case anyone is still reading, the quote in the NY Observer was: "No one
would have believed it if it did not happen ..." since you have already
gone the perfect tense with the conditional clause at the start of the
sentence, convention has it that the second, dependent clause go into the
pluperfect: "No one would have believed it if it had not happened..."
Although American convention has diverged from the English, I remain
convinced the original makes more sense in terms of consistency of time in
written or spoken language - especially in reported speech.
If you have reached this far... thank you for "listening" ;-)
Chris
Yes, Chris, this sort of usage is very poor and it's on the increase. In
the papers some of it is prevailing because reporters now tend to quote
absolutely verbatim rather than correct the grammar silently for print.
Unfortunately, it would be easier for us just to start another war ...
Joel W.
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|