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Layla1234 Posted 15 years ago
Grammar
For ages
I am confused a little bit. Can you explain me the difference between these sentences? Can we use for age with Past Continuous? I was browsing the Internet and I found something like that:
It was on a webpage dedicated to English:
You can't have been at home. I was knocking on the door for ages.- is it possible to use here Past Perfect Continuous? If so, what will be the difference in meaning?
Whereas in my book, while doing exercises I found:
I am happy he finally got that job. He had been looking for ages.
Why in the first sentence Past Continuous was used whereas in the second one Past Perfect Continuous?
Best regards,
layla
It was on a webpage dedicated to English:
You can't have been at home. I was knocking on the door for ages.- is it possible to use here Past Perfect Continuous? If so, what will be the difference in meaning?
Whereas in my book, while doing exercises I found:
I am happy he finally got that job. He had been looking for ages.
Why in the first sentence Past Continuous was used whereas in the second one Past Perfect Continuous?
Best regards,
layla
Top answer
'for ages' is better with a perfect tense, but you might get away with it in the past continuous. I would have said I knocked on the door for a long time . 'for ages' means for a very long time.
- 'for ages' is better with a perfect tense, but you might get away with it in the past continuous.
- I would have said I knocked on the door for a long time .
- 'for ages' means for a very long time.
- It doesn't change its meaning because of the tense of the main verb.
- Because of the literal meaning of the word 'ages', it doesn't go very well with knocking on a door, a fairly brief event, but it does go well with looking for a job, an activity of much longer duration.
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1 Answers
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'for ages' is better with a perfect tense, but you might get away with it in the past continuous. I would have said I knocked on the door for a long time.
'for ages' means for a very long time. It doesn't change its meaning because of the tense of the main verb. Because of the literal meaning of the word 'ages', it doesn't go very well with knocking on a door, a fairly brief eve
'for ages' means for a very long time. It doesn't change its meaning because of the tense of the main verb. Because of the literal meaning of the word 'ages', it doesn't go very well with knocking on a door, a fairly brief eve
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