Job Discussion Forums

[leeroy]

This came up while we were reporting speech (that was already in the past) into the past perfect. Hence....

Phil: "I went to the pub"
Me: "Phil said he had gone to the pub".

I sensed from my students' eyes; "God man! Does it matter? Surely we can just say "He said he went to the pub" and be done with it!".

Actually, they had a point. If my brother (had) told me "He said he went to the pub", I would hardly stare at him in complete puzzlement (until, of course, he corrected himself and said "he said he had gone to the pub.)

Nontheless, I was feeling in a 'direct' mood today, and perhaps felt the need to be a little assertive, as is the way with a new class...

"When native speakers speak, we can make grammatical mistakes. It's OK. But if you make mistakes you sound stupid. When you hear a British person saying something incorrectly then don't think you can copy them, because you can't. You have to follow the rules closer than native speakers, because you have an accent."

Not sure why I was feeling so dastardly - as my feelings on the matter are actually no-where near as strong as how I had worded them. Still, I stick by the crux of my argument - it's OK for native speakers to break the rules, because we know them.

Disagree below, please...

[darkpoet]

I agree. Only a native speaker could get away with breaking the rules. It's like we were told in school - "Ain't isn't a word." But at least we understand that it is a bowlderized version of "Are not" - which kind of makes it a word... it just isn't proper grammar.

The way I figure it, it's my 20+ years of speaking the language and knowing exactly what is wrong with a sentence when I hear it is precisely what gives me the right to fool around a bit with words...

I understand the humour in bending English because I know I will get the nuances... I doubt many non-native speakers would even get Homer Simpson's famous "Mmmmm sacrilicious..." exactly because they do not understand how two very differnt words could be combined to make a one-word joke.

My other favorite Simpsons' quote is "Me fail English? That's unpossible!"

[SueH]

I think I'll break my own rules. I can't focus on the answer to your question at the moment as random trains of thought disappear in various directions.

I'm going down the local..
Good question, though...

[leeroy]

That's OK Sue... you're a native speaker...

[denise]

leeroy--

Awesome avatar.

When such things come up (with advanced classes--I am more careful about presenting the prescriptively "correct" forms with the lower levels...I'm not quite sure why, since they've eventually advance and be exposed to more forms anyway...) I do give them both forms--

He said he went to the pub.

He said he had gone to the pub.

I stop short of saying that only native speakers can be "incorrect" (although you make a valid argument for it), telling them merely that one is what they will likely here on the streets and the other is what they will see in the textbooks. I try to prepare them to comprehend both forms. I may or may not correct them orally/in writing; I would likely just make sure they know the difference.

d

[johnslat]

In the example given:

" He said he went to the pub.

He said he had gone to the pub. "

There's not much chance of misunderstanding ( although, given the right context, " He said he went to the pub " could be indicating a usual action ):

e.g. " When I asked him what he did every night at 6 pm, he said he went to the pub. "

But in some other contexts:

e. g. " He said that dinosaurs roamed the earth."

Well, there might be a bit of a problem ( unless the speaker happened to be Steven Spielberg ).

Regards,
John

[Hogbear]

[denise]

[Roger]

"He said he had gone to the club..." = he had gone on a particular day or time, once;
not sure what exactly is being said in: "he said he went to the club..."

Put in direct speech mode:
He said, "I went to the club last night!"

He said, "I had gone to the club... before we met at the disco"

[Hogbear]

Just checking...

"He said two plus two equals four." Right?

Not:
"He said two plus two equaled four."
or
"He said two plus two had equaled four." (Huh?)

[lagerlout2006]

How about.... "Said 'es off to the pub."..... Sounds good.

OR......"Off to the pub is he??? I'll ave is ead!!" That I can hear evn though not English not this He said he had gone to the pub business.

[Stephen Jones]

"I went to the pub" can be rendered in reported speech as "He said he went to the pub" or "He said he had gone to the pub".

Both are perfectly correct, though the first is much much more common. There is no quesiton at all about breaking rules here, simply a tradition of many grammar books giving quite incorrect rules.

You teach both of them, and indeed miss out the past perfect if you don't want to confuse.

You would use "had gone" to avoid ambiguity but there are few occasions when this is an issue. Here is one example for the record though "He said he went/had gone to the pub a lot in England."

[dmb]

In joke telling isn't it more common to hear "And he goes....."?

[Hogbear]

[thelmadatter]

just for the record ...

"ain't" isn't a corruption of "are not." It used to be, a long time ago, the correct contraction of "am not." But Lord Somebody decided it was 'incorrect' and it became so. So now in English we dont have a correct contraction for "am not" and "ain't" gets used for every person (I ain't, you ain't, he/she/it ain't, etc).

Sometimes prescriptive grammar screws things up!