Are Tense Shifts Advisable?

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Should all verbs in a sentence be consistent in tense? Tense shift is often essential, but it’s sometimes unnecessarily discouraged.

See, for example, this sentence: “I thought I’d seen the last of him, but here he comes again.” The shift in tense is natural; to revise the beginning to “I thought I’ve seen . . . or “I think I’ve seen . . .” or “I thought I saw . . .” is not necessary (though they’re all defensible), but I think the original is the best choice.

A reader recently alerted me to a questionable assertion about this topic in a writing handbook. In an otherwise sensible passage advising against unnecessary shifts in tense, the guide took exception to this passage:

“Naming the five best movies of last year was easy. Ninety percent of the movies I see are lousy, and that leaves only a handful that are even worth considering.”

The recommended revision follows:

“Naming the five best movies of last year was easy. Ninety percent of the movies I saw were lousy, and that left only a handful that were even worth considering.”

I disagree with that solution. The second sentence, I think, is perfectly acceptable as is: The first sentence establishes that an action was taken in the past. The second one shifts to make a related observation that is true now, at the moment the statement is written and at the moment when it is read. No cognitive dissonance occurs.

Past tense can, alternatively, be introduced into the passage, but not to the extent shown in the handbook’s revision. Here’s the compromise alteration:

“Naming the five best movies of last year was easy. Ninety percent of the movies I saw are lousy, and that left only a handful that are even worth considering.”

This version retains the backward glance at the creation of the list but suggests that the writer’s evaluation about the quality of films is perpetual; the ninety percent of films he or she saw are lousy and, to the reviewer, will always be lousy, and only a handful are and will be worthy of consideration.

Here’s another example:

“He said it made sense for his clients to self-publish through the agency instead of going directly to Amazon themselves, because the agency brought experience in marketing and jacket design.”

What the person found sensible is presumably something that is and will always be sensible, so the stated strategy “makes sense,” not “made sense”; the latter phrase implies that the strategy was sensible at one time but may no longer be so. This introduces an ambiguity of comprehension.

Similarly, the agency’s experience in marketing and jacket design is presumably a steady state, so the final clause should include the phrase “brings experience.” The point is not that, at one time, the agency provided an advantage; it is that the agency continuously provides the advantage.

Hence my recommended revision:

“He said it makes sense for his clients to self-publish through the agency instead of going directly to Amazon themselves, because the agency brings experience in marketing and jacket design.”

5 Misplaced Modifiers

 

The syntax of the English language is fairly flexible, but one rigid rule is that a word or phrase that modifies a word or a phrase should be positioned so that its interrelationship with the target component is clear. These five sentences illustrate the importance of this rule.

1. “People watched a television broadcast reporting on North Korea’s nuclear test at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday.”
The sentence structure suggests that the nuclear test was conducted at a South Korean railway station. Rearrange the phrasing so that the modifying phrase about the location of the observation is adjacent to the description of the observation: “People at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, watched a television broadcast reporting on North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday.”

2. “She adopted the term biracial after hearing it in discussions about being a person of mixed-race origin while an undergrad at Wellesley College.”
This sentence gives the reader the impression that discussions were about temporary ethnic designation — about being a person of mixed-race origin only during one’s college years. But it was the subject’s self-designation, not her ethnicity, that changed during her college years, as this revision indicates: “While she was an undergrad at Wellesley College, she adopted the term biracial after hearing it in discussions about being a person of mixed-race origin.”

3. “According to historical records, he emancipated the slaves he owned in his will.”
The modifying phrase “in his will,” as appended to “the slaves he owned,” implies that the slaves he freed were those located in his will, which implies that other slaves not contained therein were not necessarily freed. To eliminate ambiguity, insert the modifying phrase as a parenthetical following the introductory phrase: “According to historical records, in his will, he emancipated the slaves he owned.”

4. “It’s about a guy whose presidency is going up in flames named George W. Bush.”
This syntax creates the impression that the flames are named George W. Bush. The phrase “named George W. Bush” does modify “guy whose presidency is going up in flames,” but for the sake of clarity, insert the phrase after guy and before the rest of the phrase, which itself modifies guy: “It’s about a guy named George W. Bush whose presidency is going up in flames.”

5. “That cycle can only be corrected when we come to value the vital role of private preserves.”
Incorrect location of only in a sentence is the most common type of misplacement of a modifier. Comprehension of a sentence’s meaning is rarely compromised by this error, but only should be put where it belongs. In this case, it modifies corrected, not can, so it should follow corrected: “That cycle can be corrected only when we come to value the vital role of private preserves.”

5 Cases for Requiring a Comma Before a Sentence Tag

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A sentence tag is a word or phrase added to the beginning or end of a statement for emphasis or to provide more information. For the following sentences, I discuss the necessity of preceding end-of-sentence tags with a comma.

1. “I shouldn’t have been surprised really.”

Without a comma separating really from the rest of the sentence, the implication is that really is an adverb modifying how the writer should not have been surprised (really, as in factually, and the opposite of allegedly). However, its function is merely to emphasize the point: “I shouldn’t have been surprised, really.”

2. “I was in the other room at the time actually.”

This sentence indicates that the writer was in the other room in an actual manner, rather than figuratively, but that’s not the literal meaning. The writer has been challenged about his or her location when an incident occurred, and the intent, again, is to emphasize. A comma is required before actually to signal this distinction: “I was in the other room at the time, actually.”

The idea could also be conveyed with actually inserted elsewhere in the sentence (in descending order of elegance): “Actually, I was in the other room at the time” or “I was, actually, in the other room at the time” or “I was in the other room, actually, at the time.” (Note that not all adverbial tags are so flexible about location; try these variations in the first example, and you’ll see that really seems to feel right only as a concluding tag.)

3. “We did it all right.”

This sentence implies that the writer is evaluating a merely competent performance. With a comma inserted before “all right,” the implication is of emphasis on the fact of the accomplishment: “We did it, all right.”

4. “They offered a free pass to boot.”

Without a comma preceding “to boot” (which means “as a bonus”), the phrase appears to describe an action that is, thanks to the pass, complimentary. The comma signals that “to boot” is an appendage that idiomatically offers additional information: “They offered a free pass, to boot.”

5. “Geology has an impact on biology and vice versa.”

As written, this sentence seems to equate biology and vice versa as two things geology has an impact on. But “vice versa,” meaning “the opposite,” applies to the entire sentence preceding it, so it must be set off from the sentence: “Geology has an impact on biology, and vice versa.”

What Is a Sentence?

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Multiple definitions exist for sentence, and various sources differ in their interpretation of what constitutes a valid sentence and which forms are incorrect. Here’s a brief survey of what a sentence is.

A sentence is generally understood to be a unit of one or more words distinct from preceding and following text. Sentences are categorized as declaratives, or statements (“I walked the dog”), imperatives, or commands (“Walk the dog”), or interrogatives, or questions (“Should I walk the dog?”). A variation of the declarative form is the exclamation, or exclamatory sentence (“I walked the dog!”).

A sentence can be both imperative and exclamatory (in which case the exclamation point preempts the period) or both interrogative and exclamatory (in which case the question mark preempts the exclamation point, though some writers include both in that order — a style considered improper in formal contexts). A sentence can also be both imperative and interrogatory, though the former function overrides the latter one, and such statements are not treated as questions. (“Would you be so kind as to close the door” is simply a more courteous way to direct someone to close the door.)

Traditionally, the first letter of the first word of a sentence is capitalized, although some writers have chosen to eschew capitalization of the first word and perhaps proper nouns. (This style, however, is eccentric and frowned on in formal writing.) Terminal punctuation — a period, a question mark or an exclamation point, or ellipses — is also a general feature.

Sentences usually include a subject and a verb, but those parts of speech are not essential, though they are almost invariably employed in formal writing.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary includes the following definition for sentence: “A word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses.”