English Language Question

[Stone]

It's OK to have some divergent views on the topic. But I am sure every ESL speaker will appreciate everyone's responses when reading those.

 

If I just want to state a matter of fact, is "George Washington is the first President of the United States" grammatically correct or should the "is" be replaced by "was"?

 

Thanks again.

[David&Wendy]

It's OK to have some divergent views on the topic. But I am sure every ESL speaker will appreciate everyone's responses when reading those.

 

If I just want to state a matter of fact, is "George Washington is the first President of the United States" grammatically correct or should the "is" be replaced by "was"?

 

Thanks again.

 

George Washington was the first President of the United States of America.

[yuehan123]

George Washington was the first President of the United States of America.

And, the reason has to do with the subject. And, as pointed out in a previous post, the time. The subject, in this case is George Washington. The subject is not ...the first President of... that is some kind of other fancy thing whose name I have no clue. The time is in the past. Think of it in this way, I do- George Washington is what? He is long gone. So, everything about ole George is a was. Well, except, George Washington is famous, and he is long gone. Because he still is famous, so you see, it depends. Don't ya have to love English?

 

If your wife had said, George Washington's name is the first name on the list of Presidents, what your wife suggested would be true. He still is first on the list. The rank on the list is current, it is now. Famous is current, it is also now. But having been President is in the past, regardless of where in the past.

[Stone]

George Washington was the first President of the United States of America.

And, the reason has to do with the subject. And, as pointed out in a previous post, the time. The subject, in this case is George Washington. The subject is not ...the first President of... that is some kind of other fancy thing whose name I have no clue. The time is in the past. Think of it in this way, I do- George Washington is what? He is long gone. So, everything about ole George is a was. Well, except, George Washington is famous, and he is long gone. Because he still is famous, so you see, it depends. Don't ya have to love English?

 

If your wife had said, George Washington's name is the first name on the list of Presidents, what your wife suggested would be true. He still is first on the list. The rank on the list is current, it is now. Famous is current, it is also now. But having been President is in the past, regardless of where in the past.

 

I can see you are or were an English teacher, so you have made the subject so clear. According to you, the following two sentences would be grammatically correct:

 

(1) The first president of the United States is George Washington.

(2) George Washington is famous.

 

A million thanks

[yuehan123]

I can see you are or were an English teacher, so you have made the subject so clear. According to you, the following two sentences would be grammatically correct:

(1) The first president of the United States is George Washington.

(2) George Washington is famous. A million thanks

Thanks for your flattery. However, I am not a credentialed teacher of any subject. As for (1), you got me there. Don said it's so, so I guess it is so and, there are no rebuttals yet. (2) is correct.

[RLS]

If you were my English student I would have you stand in the corner for an hour. Just kidding!

 

Keep your tenses straight and you'll be okay. "Showed" is past tense, "shows" is present tense, and "will show" is future tense. The blood test was done in the past; the results just came in and are present. If you say the blood test "will show" - then you are predicting the future and you need to open up a psychic business.

[tonado]

I have a question about the English tense. Maybe someone here can point me in the right direction. Look at the following example, which is better English:

 

A. I had blood test done last week. The result came back today, which shows that I am OK and healthy.

 

B. I had blood test done last week. The result came back today, which showed that I was OK and healthy.

 

Is A or B better? My wife thinks B is better, because every verb in the sentence is consistent, i.e. all in past tense. But my argument is that can "it showed me that I was OK" suggest that "the test can no longer show that I am still OK and healthy"? Since they are in past tense, it kind of saying: everything was past and I am no longer healthy and OK?

 

What do you think? Thank you for your elucidation.

 

Too wordy on both.

 

I had blood test done last week; the result (which came back today) was okay.

[SirLancelot]

My wife took an ESL class and wrote something like :"George Washington is the first President of United States.", which was later corrected by her ESL teacher as "George Washington was the first President of United States.".

 

My wife's argument is: as a matter of stated fact, George Washington still is the first President of United States, though he was elected many years ago. I told her that since George Washington is no longer alive, that is why we should use the past tense here. Make sense?

 

 

The sentence along is not enough to truly determine if it is correct or not. If I were to write a story and set the story in the time of when G. W. was alive, then I may start the story with "G.W. is the first President of the U.S." That is correct. But if I were to write a story set in the present or anytime after he died, then writing "G.W. is the first President of the U.S." would be grammatically incorrect in American English. One should write "George Washington was the first President of the U.S."

 

I think your wife has issues with is/was in this sentence because in Chinese there's no past or present tense. It's all one tense. I can see why she would argue that George Washington is still the first President of the U.S., even in the present. It's as if she directly and literally translated the sentence from Chinese. But because of the tenses, in English, one needs more context than that sentence alone to determine if it is truly grammatically correct or not. Once given the whole context, then one can determine if it's grammatically proper or not.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Stone]

I think your wife has issues with is/was in this sentence because in Chinese there's no past or present tense. It's all one tense.

 

Yes, I was talking with my wife the other day: many Chinese have difficulties in three area: (1) tenses; (2) articles (direct vs. indirect); (3) singular form vs plural form

[tywy_99]

It's good to see that we are all just one big happy family with much in common! niga, niga, pardon me?........

[robert]

It's OK to have some divergent views on the topic. But I am sure every ESL speaker will appreciate everyone's responses when reading those.

 

If I just want to state a matter of fact, is "George Washington is the first President of the United States" grammatically correct or should the "is" be replaced by "was"?

 

Thanks again.

 

George Washington was the first President of the United States of America.

AND..Still is!!!

[jemmyell]

The point, was to discuss tense. And now, we've been shown that what shows up may not win the grammaticalness prize.

Look that one up in your Fuckin' Wagnall's

 

dude, that Fuckin' and Wagnall's

 

-James

[Dan R]

And gender. He/she seems to be difficult for my wife, anyways.

 

It is all the same in Chinese. "Ta" but why is it so hard to learn the English? Kinda gives you a start when she says, "I'm going to stay at my friend's hotel room tonight. He just came from China and we have so much to catch up on. Maybe in the morning we can all have breakfast together." Yum Uh Yeh Well Uh. "Wait till you see him, he was the prettiest girl in our school."

[david_dawei]

And gender. He/she seems to be difficult for my wife, anyways.

 

It is all the same in Chinese. "Ta" but why is it so hard to learn the English? Kinda gives you a start when she says, "I'm going to stay at my friend's hotel room tonight. He just came from China and we have so much to catch up on. Maybe in the morning we can all have breakfast together." Yum Uh Yeh Well Uh. "Wait till you see him, he was the prettiest girl in our school."

Great example, Dan.

I've given up on the s/he thing... ta is much easier

 

yea... except the 'he' is sometimes really a 'he'... and they have no problem with that either

[SirLancelot]

And gender. He/she seems to be difficult for my wife, anyways.

 

It is all the same in Chinese. "Ta" but why is it so hard to learn the English? Kinda gives you a start when she says, "I'm going to stay at my friend's hotel room tonight. He just came from China and we have so much to catch up on. Maybe in the morning we can all have breakfast together." Yum Uh Yeh Well Uh. "Wait till you see him, he was the prettiest girl in our school."

Great example, Dan.

I've given up on the s/he thing... ta is much easier

 

yea... except the 'he' is sometimes really a 'he'... and they have no problem with that either

 

This is true for spoken Chinese but it's not true for written Chinese. I am told by my wife that he, she and it are three different characters in written Chinese. This puzzles me greatly as indeed Chinese people are notorious for mixing up the gender pronouns he/she when speaking English.