a. What happened?
b. What's happened?
-- I was in a car accident!
"a" is the answer that is "correct" (this is from a pre-made test I have to give my students).
How to explain why "what's happened" is not the best answer other than "that's just the way it is!"
Help!
Help - how to explain
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BeautifulFerret
- Posts: 9
- Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:30 am
Hm..
I'm replying to my own post here...
I suppose "what happened" is best since the answer to that question isn't in the present perfect? Normally if you said, "What's happened?" the person would reply, "I've been in a car accident" instead of "I was in a car accident." ???
I suppose "what happened" is best since the answer to that question isn't in the present perfect? Normally if you said, "What's happened?" the person would reply, "I've been in a car accident" instead of "I was in a car accident." ???
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fluffyhamster
- Posts: 3031
- Joined: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:57 pm
- Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
I'd agree that 'What happened (to you)?' (> 'I was in an accident') sounds better than 'What's happened to you?', but going from that to say a) 'is best since the answer to that question isn't in the present perfect' is more a reflection of the "that's just the way it is"-nature of the test item itself (which we can see laid out before us in all its mechanical aspects); that is, there isn't necessarily always a one-to-one match between verb forms in questions and answers.
For example:
1. A: Wow, what happened to you?!
B: I've taken up brawling Fight Club-style, hence the black eyes, missing teeth, stitches etc. (B could admittedly instead have said 'I joined a Fight Club', but the fact is, he phrased it differently).
2.A: What's wrong? What('s?) happened?
B: Sorry, I (just?) dropped and broke your expensive pen.
Forming mechanical rules on the basis of isolated items from a test probably isn't a good idea.
By the way, even if the question were the slightly odd 'What's happened to you?' (suddenly noticeable injuries are probably more the result of a one-off undesirable event e.g. an accident, crash. fight etc, than a prolonged process - not many people are joining Fight Clubs, eh!), I doubt if the answer would use Present Perfect (ditto the reason in the previous brackets). So, regarding the test item, we have signs of past event, a question framed in terms of the past (due to standard assumptions of average speaker), and an answer in terms of the past (in this instance) because that is a sensible way of framing the event.
Just for my own amusement, I did some Googling:
"what happens" 133,000,000 hits
"what happened" 91,700,000
"what's happening" 47,400,000
"what is happening" 28,100,000
"what will happen" 17,600,000
"what'll happen" 280,000
"what has happened" 12,800,000
"what's happened" 2,360,000
"what would happen" 13,800,000
"what'd happen" 20,100
You might like to do a phrase search for 'what happened' versus 'what has happened', and see which contexts and topics occur in relation to each (the latter seems more rhetorical and investigative of issues/problems, not that e.g we couldn't ask a character like Al Pacino's in The Recruit 'What happened to you?' (regarding his now corrupt behaviour)...what I'm trying to say is, asking 'What's happened to you?' of a car crash victim would be a bit odd!).
For example:
1. A: Wow, what happened to you?!
B: I've taken up brawling Fight Club-style, hence the black eyes, missing teeth, stitches etc. (B could admittedly instead have said 'I joined a Fight Club', but the fact is, he phrased it differently).
2.A: What's wrong? What('s?) happened?
B: Sorry, I (just?) dropped and broke your expensive pen.
Forming mechanical rules on the basis of isolated items from a test probably isn't a good idea.
By the way, even if the question were the slightly odd 'What's happened to you?' (suddenly noticeable injuries are probably more the result of a one-off undesirable event e.g. an accident, crash. fight etc, than a prolonged process - not many people are joining Fight Clubs, eh!), I doubt if the answer would use Present Perfect (ditto the reason in the previous brackets). So, regarding the test item, we have signs of past event, a question framed in terms of the past (due to standard assumptions of average speaker), and an answer in terms of the past (in this instance) because that is a sensible way of framing the event.
Just for my own amusement, I did some Googling:
"what happens" 133,000,000 hits
"what happened" 91,700,000
"what's happening" 47,400,000
"what is happening" 28,100,000
"what will happen" 17,600,000
"what'll happen" 280,000
"what has happened" 12,800,000
"what's happened" 2,360,000
"what would happen" 13,800,000
"what'd happen" 20,100
You might like to do a phrase search for 'what happened' versus 'what has happened', and see which contexts and topics occur in relation to each (the latter seems more rhetorical and investigative of issues/problems, not that e.g we couldn't ask a character like Al Pacino's in The Recruit 'What happened to you?' (regarding his now corrupt behaviour)...what I'm trying to say is, asking 'What's happened to you?' of a car crash victim would be a bit odd!).