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PreciousJones Posted 16 years ago
Grammar
He said he was
Hello,
I'm at the mall waiting for my friend but he hasn't shown up yet, so if I say this:
He told me he was going to come.
Does that mean he's still coming or he's no longer going to come.
I'm at the mall waiting for my friend but he hasn't shown up yet, so if I say this:
He told me he was going to come.
Does that mean he's still coming or he's no longer going to come.
Top answer
PreciousJones He told me he was going to come. Does that mean he's still coming or he's no longer going to come. It means neither.
- PreciousJones He told me he was going to come.
- Does that mean he's still coming or he's no longer going to come.
- It means neither.
- He may or may not come.
- CB
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4 Answers
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PreciousJonesHe told me he was going to come.It means neither. He may or may not come.
Does that mean he's still coming or he's no longer going to come.
CB
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So what's the difference between:
He told me he is going to come. And He told me he was going to come.
He told me he is going to come. And He told me he was going to come.
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PreciousJonesSo what's the difference between:The first sentence is not in keeping with a grammatical phenomenon called the sequence of tenses. Told is past tense and therefore was is normally used in a that clause. This makes English a little inexact. If a
He told me he is going to come. And He told me he was going to come.
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I don't think that this means that Englsih is inexact. When I say something like "I knew [that] he lived in Moscow", I mean that I knew that he lived there at the time the question was asked (or the knowledge was necessary), but I didn't say it. I'd imagine the conversation going something like this:
Person: Where does he live?
Me: I'm not sure.
Person (after looking it up somew
Person: Where does he live?
Me: I'm not sure.
Person (after looking it up somew
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