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Lukand Posted 12 years ago
Grammar
tenses sequence consistence enquiry
Hallo
Recently, I found the following sentences in the lyrics by Kylie Minogue ('I Was Gonna Cancel'):
'I was gonna cancel then you reminded me of who I am'.
Is it the correctly built one? Should it not have been like that:
'I was gonna cancel then you reminded me of who I was'
And another similar one:
'I was gonna cancel until you reminded me of what I do'
or:
'I was gonna cancel until you reminded me of what I did'
I was taught that one should be consistent. But now I am in doubt. In my native language (Polish) when building similar sentences (no matter when it happens) a permanent phenomenon is expressed in the Polish present tense. In English it does not apply. Am I right or does any exception to the rule exist?
3 minutes ago
Recently, I found the following sentences in the lyrics by Kylie Minogue ('I Was Gonna Cancel'):
'I was gonna cancel then you reminded me of who I am'.
Is it the correctly built one? Should it not have been like that:
'I was gonna cancel then you reminded me of who I was'
And another similar one:
'I was gonna cancel until you reminded me of what I do'
or:
'I was gonna cancel until you reminded me of what I did'
I was taught that one should be consistent. But now I am in doubt. In my native language (Polish) when building similar sentences (no matter when it happens) a permanent phenomenon is expressed in the Polish present tense. In English it does not apply. Am I right or does any exception to the rule exist?
3 minutes ago
Top answer
"who I am" and "what I do" suggest permanent character traits, habitual ways of behaving. This is what the writer wanted to express. Consider that "what I did" would refer to a specific action in the past, but "what I do" suggests "what I always do", "what it is in my nature to do".
- "who I am" and "what I do" suggest permanent character traits, habitual ways of behaving.
- This is what the writer wanted to express.
- Consider that "what I did" would refer to a specific action in the past, but "what I do" suggests "what I always do", "what it is in my nature to do".
- ", where the past should definitely be used after "that".
- CJ
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3 Answers
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"who I am" and "what I do" suggest permanent character traits, habitual ways of behaving. This is what the writer wanted to express.
Consider that "what I did" would refer to a specific action in the past, but "what I do" suggests "what I always do", "what it is in my nature to do".
The grammatical pattern "reminded me of what/who ..." does not follow the same rule for consistenc
Consider that "what I did" would refer to a specific action in the past, but "what I do" suggests "what I always do", "what it is in my nature to do".
The grammatical pattern "reminded me of what/who ..." does not follow the same rule for consistenc
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And how about the following events sequence. Let's imagine the simple situation. Someone said: 'My name is John'. After some time somebody else reports this event: 'He said his name was John'. That's obvious. But how about: 'He said his name is John'? The consistency rule does not allow to express this way, even if the name has remained the same. Am I right or I would need to learn s
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lukandSomeone said: 'My name is John'. After some time somebody else reports this event: 'He said his name was John'.Changing to "was" is called backshifting. There are two facts about backshifting that must be kept in mind.
1. Backshifting is always correct.
2. Backshifting is optional (but extremely common in comparison to not
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