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Dear all,Kindly tell which of the following sentences is correct.I told her that I wanted to send money to John immediately.I told her that I want to send money to John immediately.Thanking you in advance.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

The first sentence is right. The question is related to narration.

CalifJim · Answer

cat navy 425
Dear all,
Kindly tell which of the following sentences is correct.
I told her that I wanted to send money to John immediately.
I told her that I want to send money to John immediately.
Thanking you in advance.

The first one is the usual choice.

For more than two centuries 'told her that I wanted' has been chosen more often than 'told her that I want' — most recently about 20 times more often.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=told+her+that+I+want%2Ctold+her+that+I+wanted&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ctold%20her%20that%20I%20want%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ctold%20her%20that%20I%20wanted%3B%2Cc0

That said, it's not wrong to say 'told her that I want'. But I don't recommend getting into the habit of starting with a past tense (told, said, knew, thought) and then switching to the present because sometimes it sounds wrong to English speakers. In fact, the Ngram viewer cannot find even one example of 'knew that he says' in any book (in their corpus) written in the past two centuries! Starting with the past and continuing in the past almost always sounds better.

CJ

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