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Please check the sentenceI do not understand what is going on here. If your boss is not present you are always making noise. You should know on thing, when ever you peoples are making noise that will be affect others also. Thanks

Dimsumexpress · Accepted Answer

Hi, This is more than a sentence. It's more like a paragraph.

hellonanoPlease check the sentence.

I do not understand what is going on here. If when your boss is not present, you ~~are~~ always make ~~making~~ noise. You should know one thing. Whenever you peoples ~~are~~ make noise, it ~~that~~ will be affect others ~~also~~.

Thanks

"Always" mean as 'routinely' ,or 'habitually' , which is not exactly compatible with present progressive tense. For example: He is always visiting his mom on Sundays ". I won't call this wrong, but it has a strange ring to it as " always " conflicts with " he is visiting his mon on Sundays ".

" He always visits his mom... " is more syntactically fit with "always", to me anyway.

Ivanhr · Answer

Hi

While I generally agree with Dimsum, I think it's possible and common to use a present progressive verb when expressing irritation or criticism. So, you're always making noise (criticism) is ok to my ears, especially in the first instance with "always".

Dimsumexpress · Answer

Ivanhryou're always making noise

If this is the only context. I agree with you. And there are many patterns in which "always " work perfectly with present progressive. i.e.
" He is always doing something to keep himself busy."
" Our company is always looking for talented engineering professionals."

That said, the original was " If your boss is not here, you are always making noise", which I changed to "when". WIth " if ", the sentence becomes conditional, and that sounds awkward to me. But " when " is not without issue with logic. The reason I didn't agree with it is really because " When " which in actuality is a conjunction; if we simply rearrange the orinigal text to: You are always making noise [when ] your boss is not present (which sound better to me with ' here' ), The logic behind it is, how can you be always making noise ? does that mean your boss is always gone, so that the noise making is always present ?

Ivanhr · Answer

I agree that when is better than if in that sentence (even though if you can replace if with when/whenever  in a sentence then it's not a real conditional sentence anyway). Still, to me, the use of the progressive puts more emphasis on critisicm but, I think both are ok really.

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