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ELA 5: Inappropriate Shifts in Verb Tense 376 Views
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Description:
As we know from countless sci-fi flicks, messing around with time can lead to problems. The same thing’s true when it comes to grammar, though you're a bit less likely to change the course of history with verb tenses.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak in As we know from countless
- 00:15
sci fi flicks messing around with time can lead to
- 00:18
problems the same thing's True When it comes to grammar
- 00:21
though bureau it less likely to change the course of
- 00:23
history with verb tenses When we make a shift in
Full Transcript
- 00:26
verb tenses were changing the times when the various verbs
- 00:29
are taking place instead of a sentence where everything is
- 00:32
taking place in the present your sentence might start in
- 00:34
the present but ended the past or start in the
- 00:37
present but end in the future or well There are
- 00:40
lots of different webley wobbly timey wine The ways that
- 00:43
verb tenses can shift in most cases It's just it's
- 00:45
Confusing as it sounds i say you're out on a
- 00:48
fishing trip and you get a call from a friend
- 00:49
who asked how the trip is going When you say
- 00:52
the fish are biting and the water was calm this
- 00:55
sentence has a shift in verb tense The verb are
- 00:58
biting is in the present while was is in the
- 01:01
past Now this sentence might be true but it's a
- 01:04
bit confusing The water was calm but how is it
- 01:07
now that the fish are Biting your friend is probably
- 01:10
over there going uh i was just making small talk
- 01:13
You've completely bamboozled me by the way Bamboozling people is
- 01:17
super fun because you get to use the word bamboozled
- 01:20
it's pretty fun to say bamboozled bamboozled bamboozled bamboozled that
- 01:24
being said sometimes shifts in verb tense make perfect sense
- 01:28
say jared's at an all night movie marathon and a
- 01:30
friend calls asking what he's seen jared might say I
- 01:33
saw the creature from the weird shed and soon i
- 01:35
will watch space monsters from over there This sentence definitely
- 01:39
involves a shift in verb tense the verb saw is
- 01:41
in the past while will watches in the future But
- 01:44
even with this shift in verb tense it makes perfect
- 01:47
sense So jared is in the clear think but let's
- 01:51
say jared wasn't quite so clever and he said i
- 01:53
saw the creature from the weird shed and soon i
- 01:56
am watching space monsters from over there again The sentence
- 02:00
involves a shift in verb tense the verb saws in
- 02:03
the past while i'm watching is in the present but
- 02:05
the last half of the sentence is a bit of
- 02:06
a mess How can you Soon be doing something in
- 02:09
the present It hurts our head just thinking about it
- 02:12
So this hypothetical sentence is what we call an inappropriate
- 02:16
shift in verb tense When it comes to shifting verb
- 02:18
tenses you really just have to be careful After all
- 02:21
make one mistake and your entire sentence will soon cease 00:02:24.95 --> [endTime] to make sense Darn it
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