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Why past tense? (the server return an error saying he was not in the Lotus...)

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#1 (permalink) Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:12 am Why past tense? (the server return an error saying he was not in the Lotus...)

Hi All, Is that the proper use of the tense in the below sentence? When trying to connect Kevin to Lotus, the server return an error saying he was not in the Lotus Directory As for me I'd have written he is not

Attila
I'm here quite often ;-)

Joined: 12 Jul 2006
Posts: 127
Location: Hungary

#2 (permalink) Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:12 pm Why past tense? (the server return an error saying he was not in the Lotus...

Attila wrote:

Hi All,

Is that the proper use of the tense in the below sentence?

When trying to connect Kevin to Lotus, the server return an error saying he was not in the Lotus Directory

As for me I'd have written he is not

There are two mistakes in that sentence. It should say:

When I (or we) tried to connect Kevin to Lotus, the server returned an error saying he was not in the Lotus Directory.

Notice that "the server return" has no verb tense at all. Present tense would be "the server returns", and past tense would be "the server returned". The person who wrote the sentence was thinking in the past tense, but forgot to write the suffix on "return". When the sentence is written correctly, "he was not" is in the past tense because the main verb in the clause above it ("returned") is in the past tense. Usually in English, when the verb in the main clause is in the past tense, so are the verbs in the other clauses.

Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)

Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 5332
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA

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Article 'a' with the word pain: "I have a pain in my body" | How do you use the word "less"?

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