What is the difference in meaning?

Question

Hi.What is the difference in meaning?When I saw him ,he was making a phone call.When I saw him,he made a phone call.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

AnonymousWhen I saw ~~him ,he~~ him, he was making a phone call.
When I saw ~~him,he~~ him, he made a phone call.

The comma goes directly after the preceding word without a space. Leave a space after the comma.

1. Seeing him and his making the call happened at the same time. The call was in progress at the time the seeing happened.

2. It's unusual to express it this way, but it can be interpreted like this: I saw him. Then he made the call. It makes it sound as if he noticed that I saw him, and that caused him to make the call.

Here's a better example:

1. The robber was running out of the bank when the police arrived.
2. The robber ran out of the bank when the police arrived.

1. The police arrived. At that same moment, the robber was already running out of the bank.
2. The police arrived. Then, because of their arrival, the robber ran out of the bank.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

ok,thank you.
Let`s see if I have understood :
I have another example:

Who banged on the door? (1)

Who was banging on the door? (2)

(1) In the first sentence I heard that someone banged on the door,but I wasn`t there when it happened.
(2) The second sentence means that I was there when someone was banging on the door.

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousWho banged on the door? (1)

Who was banging on the door? (2)

(1) In the first sentence I heard that someone banged on the door,but I wasn`t there when it happened.
(2) The second sentence means that I was there when someone was banging on the door.No. It has nothing to do with whether you were there or not when it happened. It is simply two different ways of conceptualizing the banging situation.

1. You are thinking of the banging on the door as a single event bounded by points in time -- a beginning and and ending. You are not thinking of it in terms of its duration.

2. You are thinking of the banging on the door as an on-going activity that happened over a relatively unbounded period of time.

Because of the connotations of these two aspects, it is more likely that a single bang on the door would be described by 1, and a continuing series of bangs on the door would be described by 2. Nevertheless, you could even use 1 for a series of bangs, but then you're thinking of the whole series as a unitary event.

CJ

What is the difference in meaning?

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