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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Regarding sentences in supposed cooking instructions

Hi. Please help me with this. Let say this is part of cooking instructions.

.

.

4. Make a small cut on the inside of one of its legs.

5. After stuffing it with the ingredients you made (have made?), insert one of its legs in the cut you made (have made?) earlier.

.

.

Questions:

1. Would you say the past tense or present perfect tenses are correct (or possibly "appropriate") in this situation of making a dish?

2. Which modal verb, could or can, is correct here in an answer to a question? I happen to think both will be correct (appropriate?).

Q: Why do you make a small cut on the inside of one of its legs?

A: So they can (could?) insert/put one of its legs in.
  

Top answer

Anonymous 5. ) earlier. As shown.

— CalifJim

  • Anonymous 5.
  • ) earlier.
  • As shown.
  • But usually you don't make ingredients.
  • You don't make salt, sugar, herbs, spices, milk, or any other ingredient.
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12 Answers
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Anonymous5. After stuffing it with the ingredients you made (have made?), insert one of its legs in the cut you made (have made?) earlier.
As shown. But usually you don't make ingredients. You don't make salt, sugar, herbs, spices, milk, or any other ingredient. You'll need a different word like "mixture you made"
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Gramatically speaking, you have to use the perfect tense for both cases.

But to avoid the repetition, you can use the past tense in the first case without fear of being wrong.

As for the modal verb, to me could sounds more formal and fits the context better.

According to the exact action, put, insert, tuck, slide, pass through might do.

You want to insert one
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Hi. Thank you. Please tell me why the verbs have to be past tenses--if that's what you meant by your response. Don't present perfect tenses bring whatever happened or prepared to current context? (I am not so sure what I said reflects what I wanted to say, though.)

You wrote:

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Hi. I thought it might be appropriate use another post to ask this question about the use of modal verbs "can" and "could." Please help.

You wrote:


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AnonymousPlease tell me why the verbs have to be past tenses--if that's what you meant by your response.
They don't have to be past, but if I were writing the recipe I'd use past, not present perfect, because a recipe consists of steps and the reference is back to a previous step which occurred at a certain time (earlier). The use of the present perfe
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AnonymousI thought it might be appropriate use another post to ask this question about the use of modal verbs "can" and "could."
Wise decision.
Anonymous(one-sentence text in present tense)
He saves what he earns month after month, until he saves a certain amount that is needed to pay for his college education for three years.
Q
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Thank you very much for help me understand the correct use of the modal verb "could." Please allow me to ask you one more question. I think we can use the modal verb "could" in a context of failing to do something one time (?) like example sentence 1 below. How about example sentence 2? Is it correct? They, examples sentences 1 and 2, are part of answers to a supposed question.

Q
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Anonymouswe can use the modal verb "could" in a context of failing to do something
Yes.
AnonymousA: 1) We couldn't stop him.
2) No one could stop him yesterday.
Both are correct.

CJ
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Thank you for helping me.
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Hi. Please help. Would you say the following are correct as questions to the part of the cooking instructions given in the original post that started this thread? For the following questions, the present perfect tenses are in the subordinate clauses. Any help from you would be appreciated.

1. After you have made a small cut on the inside of its legs, what should you do?
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