See my <in-line> comments!
-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Fildes [mailto:afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 07 January 2014 10:08
To: Olympus Camera Discussion
Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: Small Town Infrastructure - 100% Crop
Of course it's ugly but now you're confusing grammar with politics and
telepathy?
<Oh no I am not!>
Politicians tend to be VERY careful about what they say so that they can
shift ground later if necessary.
<Agreed!>
If the Minister said 'is' at the time of speaking and implied that he would
continue to be so, then that's what he meant.
<We have no idea what he implied, nor even what he inferred, so don't put
into his mouth words which he didn't use>
Using the past tense later to describe the utterance does not preserve the
essence of the statement which expressed an attitude continuing into the
future.
<No attitude continuing into the future was expressed - I refer you to your
second sentence above! The past imperfect tense does preserve the sense of
what was said - and if what was said had been in the past tense ("I was keen
to preserve but have changed my mind") then the description should properly
have been in the pluperfect "The Prime Minister reported that he had been
keen to preserve the State Pension">
The expression 'keen to preserve' does not exclude the possibility of
failure so no verbal allowance needs to be made for a change of mind. He did
not say 'determined' or 'resolved'.
<Indeed not, only you have suggested he did. Or didn't.>
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.soultheft.com
Author/Publisher:
The SLR Compendium:
revised edition -
http://blur.by/19Hb8or
The TLR Compendium
http://blur.by/1eDpqN7
On 07/01/2014, at 8:53 PM, Piers Hemy wrote:
> I had to have a good think about this, and having slept on it, am
convinced
> that Chris is perfectly correct. "The Prime Minister reported that he WAS
> keen to preserve the State Pension" accurately reflects what the PM said
at
> the time. We cannot know from the source quoted what the PM's inclination
is
> now (a change of mind by a politician? Heaven forfend!) and thus the use
of
> the present tense is both grammatically ugly and factually unfounded
> (perhaps misleading, perhaps not).
--
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