...and hopefully I don't die.
I will be testing those plants and hopefully I don't die.
(That sentence was said by a safari guide on You Tube safarilive video.)
My question is: why is the difference in grammatical tenses in two independent clauses in that compound sentence despite the fact that both of them refer to the future?
In other words, I'm trying to figure out the grammatical reason for using the present tense in and hopefully I don't die when it is referring to the future?
Top answer
Well when you are talking about dying, it will always be in the future, won't it? There are many examples of verbs that we use in the present but with future meaning (the plane arrives tonight at 10pm. My sister has a yoga class tomorrow morning).
- Well when you are talking about dying, it will always be in the future, won't it?
- There are many examples of verbs that we use in the present but with future meaning (the plane arrives tonight at 10pm.
- My sister has a yoga class tomorrow morning).
- So using this idea in the present doesn't seem so strange.
- That being said, it would make more grammatical sense to say and hopefully I won't die.
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Well when you are talking about dying, it will always be in the future, won't it? There are many examples of verbs that we use in the present but with future meaning (the plane arrives tonight at 10pm. My sister has a yoga class tomorrow morning). So using this idea in the present doesn't seem so strange.
That being said, it would make more grammatical sense to say and hopefully I
0There isn't any grammatical reason for using "don't"; it's just a loose-ish use of language. "won't" would be proper. I would put a comma after "plants".
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