I could eat or drink because I could sign for it

[Metamorfose]

Hi

It is said that one does not use could for a specific ability or accomplishment in the past, rather, they are supposed to use managed to or was/were able to reading one book on First Certificate I came across:


"There I was in Milan on a beautiful sunny day sitting in my hotel because it was the only place I could eat or drink because I could sign for it."


It is from The Sunday Express Magazine according to the book, my question: Is it common for native speakers to use this could for either general or specific events in the past? Do people accept it? Or is it (could for general ability) only another abstraction for ESL?

Thanks a lot.

José

[fluffyhamster]

It is said that one does not use could for a specific ability or accomplishment in the past, rather, they are supposed to use managed to or was/were able to reading one book on First Certificate I came across:

"There I was in Milan on a beautiful sunny day sitting in my hotel because it was the only place I could eat or drink because I could sign for it."

It is from The Sunday Express Magazine according to the book, my question: Is it common for native speakers to use this could for either general or specific events in the past? Do people accept it? Or is it (could for general ability) only another abstraction for ESL?

Hi again, Jose!

The "problem" is that you seem to be trying to categorize 'could' there as actual specific accomplishment (versus general ability) when the context is not so much about actual/textbook simple past accomplishments but only what would be possible in the ongoing ("conditional or future") context of the story; that is, it's more about inability (or the ability to only get refreshments by signing from the hotel). So maybe we are just talking about general ability still (but see final paragraph below).

Consider:

There I was in Milan on a beautiful sunny day sitting in my hotel because...

...it was the only place I could've eaten or drunk (because I could sign for it) (NB: Original sentence reads fine to me).

...it was the only place I was able to (="stative"? "Still able to")/would('ve) (still) be(en) able to eat or drink (because I could sign for it).

...*/?it was the only place I('d) managed to eat or drink (because I could sign for it). (Hmm, 'manage to' is not always synonymous with 'be able to'; that is, 'manage to' is certainly about specific, finite accomplishments, whereas 'be able to' hovers somewhat between (past) specific accomplishment and general ability (and is probably replaced by forms of 'can' in many instances, simply because it's shorter and thus quicker to say - again, see final para). However, while 'managed to' in and by itself would therefore be wrong, I'm not sure if 'manage to' (non-finite) can't be expanded along similar lines to the 'could' or 'be able to' above...probably not, because there would be a tension between trying to incorporate actual accomplishment and (only potential) ability into a single sentence - as we all know, 'manage to do sthg' is pretty different from 'be able to manage sthg' (*/?!?!'be able to manage to do sthg', 'managed to be able to do' etc). Sorry, rambling here).

Another thing, the original two coulds might strike some as clumsy, but be quite acceptable (indeed, even pass unnoticed, especially in speech) by others.

Ultimately, I think things get whittled down during online spoken production, and 'could' can be and is used in quite a few contexts where 'was able to' or 'managed to' might be argued to be more usual, appropriate or even correct (not that the context in "question" supports 'managed to' at least) - that is, I agree that 'could' for general ability versus 'be able to' or 'managed to' for specific accomplishment may well be 'another abstraction for ESL'. Compare I could get some eggs/I was able to get some eggs/I managed to get some eggs... (and what about just plain old past simple, with the right prosody: Hey, I GOT some eggs (after all)).