tenses

Question

Could anyone please correct the following text with special emphasis on tense?‘Imagine a situation in which railway workers are planning to strike for rise in salary and they have promised to inform people (the people?) about the beginning of the strike. At dawn however railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without …

having the railway company preannounced it to the public. (?)

the railway company having pronounced it to the public (?)

the railway company previously announcing it to the public (?).

As a result, commuter students are unable to get to school the next day and two of the teachers in a secondary school enter into the following exchange:A: A lot of students are absent from (in?) my class.B: Yeah. The railway company announced the beginning of the strike, as promised (as it had been promised?).’ – said ironically

Bernice.farrugia · Accepted Answer

1. ...have promised to inform people (the people?) about the beginning of the strike... - In this case both people and the people are accepted. The use of the makes your sentence more specific since it would be directly referring to the group of people who will be effected by the strike. However, it is not considered a mistake to keep your sentence general by not using the article the.

2. At dawn however railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without … - I would keep it simple and simple say 'At dawn, however, railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without informing the public'. Do not forget that the first part of the sentence already includes a complicated sentence structure, so it makes more sence to simplify the structure of the second part of the sentence.

3. A lot of students are absent from (in?) my class.... - The correct answer is ...absent from my class...

4. Yeah. The railway company announced the beginning of the strike, as promised (as it had been promised?)... - The correct answer is...as it had promised. The subject of your sentence is THE RAILWAY COMPANY. Since you already have a subject you DO NOT NEED TO CHANGE YOUR SENTENCE FROM ACTIVE TO PASSIVE. IT refers to THE RAILWAY COMPANY and it should be followed by an ACTIVE verb -had promised.

Hope you find this information useful.

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you so much for your thorough reply, dear bernice.farrugia but I still have concerns

:

1.

bernice.farrugia 2. At dawn however railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without … - I would keep it simple and simple say 'At dawn, however, railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without informing the public'. Do not forget that the first part of the sentence already includes a complicated sentence structure, so it makes more sence to simplify the structure of the second part of the sentence.

- how could grammar express in this case that the act of the expected informing the public is prior to the beginnning of the strike?

2. Yeah. The railway company announced the beginning of the strike, as promised (as it had been promised?)... - The correct answer is...as it had promised. The subject of your sentence is THE RAILWAY COMPANY. Since you already have a subject you DO NOT NEED TO CHANGE YOUR SENTENCE FROM ACTIVE TO PASSIVE. IT refers to THE RAILWAY COMPANY and it should be followed by an ACTIVE verb -had promised. - I am still not convinced that it cannot refer back to the promise itself and not to the company. Athough I am glad to see that you also prefer the Pluperfect.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again, bernice.farrugia!

Bernice.farrugia · Answer

1. Yes you can also say '...without informing the public prior to the beginning of the strike'.
Or else you can say '...without informing the public in advance'.

2. Other ways of saying this are: - 'the railway company announced the beginning of the strike as had been promised' ; or 'the railway company announced the beginning of the strike as had been previously promised'.
3. Yeah. The railway company announced the beginning of the strike, as promised (as it had been promised?)... - The correct answer is...as it had promised. The subject of your sentence is THE RAILWAY COMPANY. Since you already have a subject you DO NOT NEED TO CHANGE YOUR SENTENCE FROM ACTIVE TO PASSIVE. IT refers to THE RAILWAY COMPANY and it should be followed by an ACTIVE verb -had promised. - I am still not convinced that it cannot refer back to the promise itself and not to the company. Athough I am glad to see that you also prefer the Pluperfect. - in this case -it cannot refer back to the promise because the only noun in this sentence is -the railway company and the prounoun -it can only refer to a noun. -promised is used as a past participle in this case, so there can definitely be no confusion between a participle and a noun.
Bernice

Palinkasocsi · Answer

Thanks Bernice. Now I see your point.

One last thing: Do you think the following is correct:

At dawn however railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without having the railway company preannounced it to the public.

Bernice.farrugia · Answer

'without having the railway company preannounced it to the public.' - without having the railway company having preannounced WHAT to the public?

The way in which this fragment is structured does not tell the reader what the word 'IT' is referring to. Therefore, if you use this structure the sentence becomes very unclear!

Palinkasocsi · Answer

(Other) natives do not agree. Some say that ...

It refers to the matter being discussed, i.e. railwaymen stop work. The structure is conversational. A more formal structure would be: At dawn, however, railwaymen, breaking their promise, stop work without having the railway company preannounce that they would do so.

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