cross the boundary

Question

n “ Tell me about a situation that crossed organizational boundaries”

Can I rewrite it as

" Tell me about a situation that violates the rule of our company."?

And why cross"ed",not cross"ing"?

Thx><

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

“ Tell me about a situation that crossed organizational boundaries”

Can I rewrite it as

" Tell me about a situation that violates the rule of our company."? No. You haven't got a correct understanding of the meaning. Consider a big company that is organized into departments, including an Accounting Department and an Information Technology Department. If there is an accounting problem, the Accounting Department takes care of it. If there is a computer problem, the Information Technology department takes care of it. But if there is a problem that involves both accounting and information technology, both departments must work together. Such a problem is said to 'cross organizational boundaries', ie in this example, the boundaries beteween the Accounting Department and the Information Technology Department.

And why cross"ed",not cross"ing"? 'Crossed' shows the question is asking about a past problem, 'crossing' would refer to a current problem.

Best wishes, Clive

GUGGI · Answer

I got it.

Thx^^

Cool Breeze · Answer

Clive“ Tell me about a situation that crossed organizational boundaries”
And why cross"ed",not cross"ing"? 'Crossed' shows the question is asking about a past problem, 'crossing' would refer to a current problem.

Hi Clive

I think you have overlooked something. I don't think you can seriously suggest the sentence could read: Tell me about a situation that crossing organizational boundaries. Instead, I think what you have in mind is what I call a relative clause equivalent: Tell me about a situation crossing organizational boundaries.

The present participle used in relative clause equivalents frequently denotes past actions: The man driving the car was Mr Smith.
English being potentially ambiguous quite often, it is of course also possible to understand the sentence as: The man who is driving the car was Mr Smith. In other words, he has changed his name since he drove the car. As Mr Micawber has recently pointed out in another thread, "Much communication includes potential ambiguity. One measure of fluency is the ability to sort serious confusion from imagined confusion." The imagined (?) confusion arises from English having too few participles. There should be a different participle for each meaning.

In this case, the ability Mr Micawber talks about and common sense tell us the sentence probably means: The man who was driving the car was Mr Smith.

Cheers
CB

Nona the brit · Answer

I don't think Clive meant that 'crossing' could be substitued for 'crossed' in this sentence. The OP asked why it wouldn't be used and Clive explained why it wasn't appropriate in this context.

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