telling vs. told

[nui]

Test No. incompl/inter-9 "Say/Tell", question 8

Now that would be ......... but my lips are sealed.

(a) told
(b) saying
(c) telling
(d) said

Test No. incompl/inter-9 "Say/Tell", answer 8

Now that would be telling but my lips are sealed.

Correct answer: (c) telling

Your answer was: incorrect
Now that would be told but my lips are sealed.
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Why use telling instead of told?

nui

[Alan]

Telling is used here because this is assumed to be happening or ( in this case) not happening but told would suggest that it has already happened.
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English as a Second Language
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[ClaudiaJorge.]

[Alan]

Hi,

Basically tell is similar to relate: as in tell a story

Say is similar to speak as in: say words

Look at this sentence:

She said she would tell a story.

Alan
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English as a Foreign Language
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[filly]

[Haihao]

Hi,

I have two questions to ask of you because I am not clear enough with the sentence.

1. To me, 'Now that would be telling' suggests the subject is 'that'. I would feel more comfortable if the subject was a person and 'Now that would be told' would suggest a person.
2. Also to me, 'Now that would be told' is assumed to be happening or (in this case) not happening, too because of the word 'would'.

But I guess there should be something wrong with my understanding. Could you give me your explanations on these two points for me? Thank you very much.

haihao

[Yankee]

Hi Haihao

The word 'telling' is used as an adjective and I would understand the meaning in your sentence "Now that would be telling" to be one of these:

1. having force or effect; effective; striking: a telling blow.
2. revealing; indicative of much otherwise unnoticed: a telling analysis of motivation in business.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/telling

It's possible but much less likely (!!!) that this sentence could also be a conditional passive form of the verb 'tell' and refer to a possible future activity. This particular meaning would depend entirely on the context.

The verb 'tell' is usually followed by a person, but not always. Consider this sentence:
He told the truth.

Your second sentence ('Now that would be told') isn't particularly meaningful to me with no context. However, the construction is a passive form of the verb 'tell' and would have a sense of a completed action in the conditional future.

Amy
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Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[Alan]

Hi Haihao,

I'm afraid I'm at a slight divergence with Amy over the expression: Now that would be telling. Admittedly telling as an adjective suggests effective and possibly evocative but in the test expression the word has a verbal function. The meaning is: Now if I told you what you wanted to know, that (the action of revealing the secret) would be me telling you what you want to know. In that sense it has a conditional function.

A
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[Yankee]

Hi Alan

My reaction was to what Haihao asked about ("Now that would be telling." and "Now that would be told."). In other words, I thought Haihao wanted to know about two complete sentences rather than two partial sentences or the test sentence.

Hi Haihao

Sorry, if the examples you gave were not intended to be complete sentences, then please ignore my previous post.

Amy
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Amy
.
ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English

[lost_soul]

Hi, Amy !

sorry for being thick-headed, but I can't get that sentence (i.e. Now that would be telling but my lips are sealed)
I know that "my lips are sealed" means "I will not utter anything" but I dont know what "that" pertains to? Is it some kind of sourse of information which would be telling something for me ?

Could you help me out with this one, please
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Alex

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