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[Alien abductee]

This paragraph is a short exercise I give to my students to ease them into proofreading. They're told that the story took place in the past, and their aim is to find and make any corrections along that line:

Mrs. Cable was the richest woman in the city, but she is also a busybody. She always wanted to know what everybody is doing. When she needs something she rings a bell and a servant came. One day a truck stops in front of her house and three men got out. They are carrying a large box. Mrs. Cable sees this and told her servant, Sam, to go and see what the men were doing.  

This is my corrected version:

Mrs. Cable was the richest woman in the city, but she was also a busybody. She always wanted to know what everybody was doing. When she needed something she rang a bell and a servant came. One day a truck stopped in front of her house and three men got out. They were carrying a large box. Mrs. Cable saw this and told her servant, Sam, to go and see what the men were doing.

My only problem here is explaining why the action at the end - where the verbs showing Sam's actions remain in the present tense. I don't usually get caught out by grammar but this one has me stuck.

Any ideas?

[Mushkilla]

I am not an English teacher, but it seems to me that what you are using is something to do with historic present?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_present

[johnslat]

Dear Alien abductee,

" . . . , to go and see what the men were doing."

Not to worry - "to go and see . . ." are both infinitives, so they won't change tense. Infinitives don't have tense.

I try to go there every day.

I am trying to go there now.

I wanted to go yesterday.

Will he want to go tomorrow?

etc.

The "to go" doesn't change.

There are "perfect infinitives," both active and passive.

"We form the perfect infinitive with to have + the -ed form of a verb. We use the perfect infinitive after verbs such as claim, expect, hate, hope, like, love, prefer, pretend:

He pretended to have lost her number and so had been unable to contact her. (or He pretended that he had lost her number …)

The perfect infinitive often refers to things that might have happened in the past:

She claims to have met a number of famous people, but I don’t believe her. (or She claims she has met …)

I would prefer to have stayed at a small, family-run hotel than a big international chain. (I prefer to stay at small hotels, but I did not.)

The perfect infinitive can refer to something that will be completed at a point in the future:

We hope to have finished the building works by the end of March.

We can use the perfect infinitive in a clause with a verb that has no subject (a non-finite clause). It can refer to events which did happen in the past or to events that might have happened (but did not happen):

To have got the job in the face of such stiff competition was a great achievement. (The person did get the job.)

To have won the race would have been fantastic, but even coming second was a great achievement. (The person did not win the race.)

See also:

Non-finite clauses"

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/perfect-infinitive-with-to-to-have-worked

The perfect infinitive is not a tense but is used to show an action that happened (or didn't) before the main verb.

Regards,
John

[Alien abductee]

Thanks for that detailed reply johnslat. Very helpful.

[scot47]

He told me to go.

Parse that sentence, Smith Minor ! And if you tell me that "go" is in the present tense you shall be flogged !