Very interesting Chris. Since I am an American and speak American English,
the Queen's English would have to have been my second second language,
hadn't it? Of course, that is not pluperfect, but rather poo-perfect. :-)
-Mickey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Barker" <ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2003 4:34 AM
Subject: [OM] OT - to lie or to lay
Dear All
Every now and then I feel this almost evangelical desire to help those
in need. This, latest, urge was started by reading a New York Observer
quotation (in an article about a tractor near the Capital) in which the
author seemed not to know the pluperfect tense ("beyond" the perfect
tense if you like). But that is a relatively new "bee in my bonnet"
and I plan to deal with an older one now. You need no urging to move
on if boredom or resentment has already set in.
I apologise for the OT post, but even if our English-speaking members
are uninterested, the clever people who can converse and correspond in
English as a second language might benefit...
To lie (intransitive verb - takes no direct object); e.g. "I lie on my
bed." or "I lie about my age."
Present tense: "I lie on my bed."; Past: "I lay ...."; Perfect: "I
have lain...."; Pluperfect: "I had lain...."
To lay (transitive verb - takes a direct object); e.g. "I lay the gun
down." or "I lay the table."
Present tense: "I lay a table."; Past: "I laid ...."; Perfect: "I have
laid ...."; Pluperfect: "I had laid ...."
In case anyone is still reading, the quote in the NY Observer was: "No
one would have believed it if it did not happen ..." since you have
already gone the perfect tense with the conditional clause at the start
of the sentence, convention has it that the second, dependent clause go
into the pluperfect: "No one would have believed it if it had not
happened..." Although American convention has diverged from the
English, I remain convinced the original makes more sense in terms of
consistency of time in written or spoken language - especially in
reported speech.
If you have reached this far... thank you for "listening" ;-)
Chris
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
mailto:ftog@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
... a nascent photo library.
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