Highly Selected Examples

[Lorikeet]

Lorikeet,

I am sorry but I didn't quite get the point.

You seemed to refer to my examples:
> However, the three examples you have chosen
> are all of the type, "The pencil sharpener was
> used to sharpen the pencil." or "He used his cell
> phone to call his friend." (This is the cell phone
> he had used to call his friend.")
>
My reply: But all my examples are in "had used to", which doesn't appear in your examples. Moreover, you didn't put in a question mark, so I don't know what or where is the problem. Therefore, I couldn't get the idea you are talking about. Would you like to explain a little more and put in a question mark?

Shun

Ed explained it in his quote above. I was trying to explain which "used" was being used, and he did a better job of it. The fact that "had used to" didn't appear in my examples was irrelevant. I'm sorry I didn't explain it as well as he did.

[shuntang]

Lorikeet,

Ed explained it in his quote above. I was trying to explain which "used" was being used, and he did a better job of it. The fact that "had used to" didn't appear in my examples was irrelevant. I'm sorry I didn't explain it as well as he did.

It really doesn't matter. I am happy now you've got the answer as you clearly don't need to put in a question mark.

Yesterday I wrote to you in humbleness, as I guessed I had posted something wrong. Please feel free if you have something else to say.

Shun

[shuntang]

Metal56,

I can't understand you better than you understand yourself. I see the main point you wanted to explain to me is here, in your bold letters:

I claim the right to perceive (see) things with other faculties than just my eyes and I insist on my use figurative language.

I just want to repeat this:

Time is invisible.

What the he*l does that mean. Chronological time is a construct that is far from invisible for humans. We devised it to separate Now from Then.
Psychological time is another thing altogether. Through that we express how we perceive time. Time is felt, it is far from invisible.

If there is no difference between what you said yesterday and what you have said now, I find it more easy to understand what you said yesterday. And then, you have the seeing and feeling power I don't have.

If there is a difference, please tell me what it is. It saves time.

Shun

[shuntang]

Ed,

Maybe you misunderstood my joke. "As if I didn't know" means I am asking that question to be funny or ironical, since I would normally remember if I had smoked in that room. I am acting innocent after someone has accused me of smoking. It has nothing to do with permission.

I did. Indeed, I did. I didn't know you made a joke of our discussion.
I fear that you may have created a lot more for us. I will double check your sense of humor.
=============

What Lorikeet says is right. These are not examples of the Past Perfect "had used to + V", which we had discussed in another thread. Rather, these are examples of the Past Perfect "had used" (of the verb USE). The "to" that follows indicates purpose as in "He had used his cell phone IN ORDER TO videotape..."
This is the danger of your google hits.

Ed, where is your logic? If one of us fails in the discussion, does it follow one is a bad person? It doesn't make any sense. Two things are not related.

Maybe I was barking up the wrong tree, dealing with a wrong topic, but this doesn't mean my logic and examples were wrong -- I don't know if you understand this. It is completely not related to the danger of the google hits. You have mixed up things that are totally not related, as bad as I did in the thread of "had used to". Maybe the difference is that you had a good intention and I didn't.

Here is the fact: in the thread "Standard use of used to or not?", I wanted to introduce The Foundation of Past Perfect and Past Continuous, in responding Metal56's examples at the beginning of the thread.:
Ex: I had used to think that the world was round.
Ex: They had used to believe in Santa.
I didn't say to whom I responded. As you can see around, when there is a self-suggested title, such as The Foundation of Past Perfect and Past Continuous, I talked to myself only. It has happened around here for more times than I can count. Clearly I didn't reply Lorikeet. To be fair, even now I have got a better understanding of the whole thing, I don't need to change any word there, unless you know had used to better than I do. I didn't posted wrongly. My message was fit for Metal56's leading question, and I didn't even notice what Lorikeet was talking about at that time. Now you told me that my message, which answered Metal56's post, could not answer Lorikeet's message, so you concluded This is the danger of your google hits. Are you joking again? How possibly you connected the two things here?
=============

Leaving metaphors and imaginary contexts aside, if we talk about JFK's assassination, we will say "He was killed" because it's a fact, it happened a long time ago, it's gone and over with.
On the other hand, if you've just witnessed an accident two minutes ago, you can say "Someone has just been killed".

Under the same conditions, you know very well that we may say in Simple Past Someone was just killed, contrasting with your Present Perfect example. Tell me if it is a wrong structure, so I get a genuine rule from you.

The reason you said here is not wholesome at all. Something finished even a long time before JFK still can be expressed in Present Perfect:
Ex: Pterosaurs have died out long before our time.
Ex: Dinosaurs have evolved into the birds we see today.
Ex: Earth has been hit by objects with catastrophic results as recently as 100 years ago.
== With Indefinite Past Time Adverbials, Present Perfect can surely refer to something finished much earlier than the shooting of JFK.

On the other hand, the instant you have achieved something now, you still can say "I did it". Do you know why? DID is shorter than HAVE DONE, and thus the former delivers the message quicker. Yes, time decides the tense we use. Using Simple Past is even cheaper than using Present Perfect in sending telegraph. In television for further example, the wildlife explorer has to use Simple Past all the way to describe the swiftly changing movements of a crocodile or a lion. In other words, immediately finished actions are well capable of making use of Simple Past. Think about he or she has to use Present Perfect all the time -- is it possible? He who uses only Present Perfect to say something finished very recently must have the asthma.

Leaving metaphors and imaginary contexts aside, if we talk about JFK's assassination, we will say "He was killed" because it's a fact, it happened a long time ago, it's gone and over with.

Do you want to say Simple Past "He was killed" was used because of a fact? Or a long time ago? Or gone and over with? Or all the conditions? This is why I said: giving onerous helps to students will make them feel at a loss and helpless. Personally, I don't know what is the most important point you have in mind. But I don't think the confusion is on my side. If you have the true reason to use Simple Past, one reason is enough. And you didn't even mention it, to tell the truth.
=============

Of course we can refer to dead people as if they were still alive (in our hearts, like you say). Your two examples do not contradict what I explained above. If JFK has been your hero, it does not mean he is still around, you are talking about your feelings only.

Do you mean that, as I say JFK has been my hero since I knew about his story, it is not a fact, but a feeling? Do you mean JFK lives in my heart is not a fact? Only Simple Past relates facts? Now you must be joking. Do you know things are always changing with time? What if I knew about something wrong about JFK, and I don't like him anymore? Can I say JFK was my hero before, but now I don't like him? Now in Simple Past, the feeling has become a fact? We judge whether a fact or not by way of a tense? You must be joking. The message I told you I have visited many forums, in Present Perfect, is not a fact, but a feeling? I beg your pardon!

Jokes are acceptable only when there are not so many.
=============

I promise you the sentence does matter.

Who said context did not matter?

My promise is to assure the one who asked "Is it the sentence that matters?" Please check who asked the naive question that contradicts us.
=============

I do not see why "I smoke in this room?" should necessarily be interpreted as "Can I smoke in this room?"

It is not important what you do not see. After you have told me what you do see, I will say the same meaning to the same example that reveals the modal verb. Try me.

As I have predicted that you will claim you don't see anything here because it is not a readable or grammatical structure, why don't you say it clearly? Tell me straight that, after the removal of the modal verb from statements of concession, you can't see anything from the sentences. Would you tell me that?

Shun

[metal56]

And then, you have the seeing and feeling power I don't have.

That's obvious.

If there is a difference, please tell me what it is. It saves time.

That's funny coming from the poster who repeats the same post, at length, a few hundred times.

[shuntang]

And then, you have the seeing and feeling power I don't have.

That's obvious.

If there is a difference, please tell me what it is. It saves time.

That's funny coming from the poster who repeats the same post, at length, a few hundred times.

Without your support, the poster could do nothing alone, at length, a few hundred times.

To tell the truth, if I don't want to stop, why will I stay on the splitting point of whether the time is visible or not? The discussion shall call for a pause now.

Thank you for your support.

Shun

[metal56]

To tell the truth, if I don't want to stop, why will I stay on the splitting point of whether the time is visible or not? The discussion shall call for a pause now.

Retreat, eh?

Regression is a movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress.

Where do we retreat when faced with stress? To the last time in life when we felt safe and secure, according to Freudian theory.

Have a nice trip, you might run into the present perfect back there.

LOL!

“What then is time?” “If someone asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to someone who asks, I know not.”

Aurelius Augustine.

Fifteen centuries have not sufficed to solve St. Augustine’s problem.
-------------------------------

Time is the element in which we exist. ... We are either borne along by it or drowned in it. --Joyce Carol Oates,

[metal56]

How do linear time and psychological time play a part in language use?

An extract:

The concept of psychological time is very hard to get a handle on. Physical time, by contrast, is easy: it is just one of the four quantitive dimensions of space-time. Even in the relativistic model that Einstein gave us, where time and space are non-trivially entangled in space-time, it is still just a numerical dimension. In the Berkeleian universe, however, physical time is, like the rest of the physical world, a fiction derived from the underlying mental reality. Therefore we need some way of accounting for time that does not beg the question by referring back to physical time. Unfortunately, I do not have such an account. All I can offer here is the suggestion that psychological time is not linear but cumulative. What I mean here by ‘linear time’ is a process in which each event happens in the present time, and is then swallowed up in the ever-growing reservoir of the past. In linear time, you can interact only with other things in the present. For instance, if I open a door and look inside a room, I can see only the room as it is now, I cannot see the room as it was fifty years ago. In short, the past is inaccessible. On the other hand, what I mean by ‘cumulative time’ is a process in which there is a continually expanding pool of events and states, in which each event that occurs still exists and can be accessed. In this model, we can indeed ‘see’ the room as it was fifty years ago, for the metamental object that represents the room in the metamind contains its full past history: so, if a sentient being sends a signal of the right type to that object, then the object will deliver the sensory image as from any earlier time.

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~ursa/philos/ty99.htm

[shuntang]

“What then is time?” “If someone asks me, I know. If I wish to explain it to someone who asks, I know not.”

Aurelius Augustine.

Fifteen centuries have not sufficed to solve St. Augustine’s problem.

Don't be joking. St. Augustine did spend a long time in studying and explaining Time in his famous book Confession. That is why people asked him about time, and he could not put what he had known in a nutshell. He did give the answer, not just the problem. He owned the best knowledge of Time in fifteen centuries. His insight is still very inspiring today.

However, no knowledge would have an end; only falsity will end someday somehow. People have to keep adding further opinions on Time, as they do in your another message, but it doesn't mean Augustine didn't solve the problem at some stage.

As you talk about him, you are helpful here. Augustine regarded that only almighty God can see and feel all the time at once, the whole time, including past, present, and future (so He can arrange things -- future things for us). But only God has such power. We mundane human beings cannot. At best, we are aware of the present time, by contrasting with the past or the future.

Time is invisible. And your examples only support my way:

Conceptual metaphor (read Lakoff)

Cast your mind back to when we first met. ( Root is activity of Fishing).
Let your thoughts wander through time to what it may be like in 2050.(Root is activity of Walking)
Look how far our relationship has come. (Root is activity of travel and real physical or temporal distance)

Other:

Think back to where it all began.
In a retrospective way.
I'm sitting on a bench in the park. It's 1922 and suzy is by my side.

If you claimed that time is "far from invisible", we don't need to "think back, or cast your mind back". We may just look at it. And further if we may really see and feel time, we may use microscope to see in details how JFK was shot. Unfortunately, time is invisible, only notions to separate the past and the future from the present.

Please think back why we have reached this argument of visibility! It is you who claimed we can differentiate Present Perfect from Simple Past, by way of looking back over or looking back to:

And finally. I mean finally:

I've seen this many times, Becky. (Looks back OVER the past)

I've saw this many times, Becky. (Looks back TO the past)

In my reasoning, as time is abstract and invisible, they both mean the same: "think back, or cast your mind back, in a retrospective way".
And yet you argued time is far from invisible, to emphasize that by differentiating looking back over the past from looking back to the past, you see between Present Perfect and Simple Past.

Metal56, if you can really do the different glances, your students cannot. But what can they say? They at best can say to you that, yes, Present Perfect does have a difference from Simple Past. Can any one student, in learning the basic part of English, discuss with an average English teacher? Use your common sense.

By the way, there is another difficulty, the difference between Simple Present and Present Perfect. Did you tell students also? Whatever you say to Simple Present can be word for word said again to Present Perfect. This is my promise. I guess Ed in other forums could have seen how I had proven it. But I haven't done that in this forum.

How to use Simple Present? Feel and look in front of us?

You will claim you want to make clear Present Perfect first. But I am talking about Present Perfect, because Present Perfect is either Simple Past or Simple Present.

Shun

[metal56]

If you claimed that time is "far from invisible", we don't need to "think back, or cast your mind back". We may just look at it. And further if we may really see and feel time, we may use microscope to see in details how JFK was shot. Unfortunately, time is invisible, only notions to separate the past and the future from the present.

So now you start to talk about notions...at last! A few posts back I told you that you were trying to manipulate my statement about feeling (sensing) and seeing/looking back over time. I told you that i was not speaking literally and that anyone who thought I was would not be a good speaker of English. See how many verbs we have to talks about notions. See how we use sense verbs non-literally. See metaphor. See PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME! Learn better English!

Please think back why we have reached this argument of visibility! It is you who claimed we can differentiate Present Perfect from Simple Past, by way of looking back over or looking back to:

And finally. I mean finally:

And I still do. The only thing wrong here is your lack of English. If you have never investigated the verb "to see", is that my fault?

Look at the problem this way.
I'm seeing him tomorrow.
He wants to see me for a date.
Can you see your way to lending me ten dollars.

Get with it Shun! Get with idiomatic language and stop insisting that the saying of looking into the past is literal. Much of the experience of our past resides within us. In our mind, and even in our muscles. And the next time, if some asks you to look back and recall what happened in a certain situation, tell them it's impossible. I'd like to see their face!

I've seen this many times, Becky. (Looks back OVER the past)

I've saw this many times, Becky. (Looks back TO the past)

Metal56, if you can really do the different glances, your students cannot.
But what can they say?

25 years of teaching tells me different. Most are my students are not the idiots you make them out to be. You may note that many of them also have the difference in their own languages and so can compare quite well.

Can any one student, in learning the basic part of English, discuss with an average English teacher? Use your common sense.

Yes they can. I do.

By the way, there is another difficulty, the difference between Simple Present and Present Perfect. Did you tell students also? Whatever you say to Simple Present can be word for word said again to Present Perfect. This is my promise. I guess Ed in other forums could have seen how I had proven it. But I haven't done that in this forum.

I've seen most of your other forums, including the one at Lydbury, and I see nowhere where you have proved anything. Just a lot of arrogant inexperienced nonsense.

Tell me how long you have been teaching English for and to whom?

How to use Simple Present? Feel and look in front of us?

[shuntang]

If you claimed that time is "far from invisible", we don't need to "think back, or cast your mind back". We may just look at it. And further if we may really see and feel time, we may use microscope to see in details how JFK was shot. Unfortunately, time is invisible, only notions to separate the past and the future from the present.

So now you start to talk about notions...at last! A few posts back I told you that you were trying to manipulate my statement about feeling (sensing) and seeing/looking back over time. I told you that i was not speaking literally and that anyone who thought I was would not be a good speaker of English. See how many verbs we have to talks about notions. See how we use sense verbs non-literally. See metaphor. See PSYCHOLOGICAL TIME! Learn better English!

My notions of time is past, present, and furure. What notions do you really want to talk about?

[shuntang]

I've seen most of your other forums, including the one at Lydbury, and I see nowhere where you have proved anything. Just a lot of arrogant inexperienced nonsense.

But how happy you are to talk with me

People are blind not to see what happens here.

Since you have seen everything of mine, I really have to stop talking to you now.

Thank you for your time.

Shun Tang

[metal56]

My notions of time is past, present, and furure. What notions do you really want to talk about?

Yours, and: past in the present, future in the present, present in the future, present in the past., objective time, psychological time.

[metal56]

Since you have seen everything of mine, I really have to stop talking to you now.

That's about the fifth time you've promised to do so.

Present Perfect

Unlike the simple past, which is “disconnected” from the present, the present perfect is a present tense, but it has perfect aspect.

It is “a way of looking at the past without leaving the present.”

And if, as you claim, everything that is said in the present perfect can be said in the past simple, what would the following be?


Maria has nagged him constantly [ever since they were married].
You've helped me keep my sanity [during this difficult time].
It has snowed on my birthday more often than not.

And you still haven't stated for how long you have been an English teacher. How long?

Now let's sse if you can resist responding.

[shuntang]