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.”

4 Types of Gerunds and Gerund Phrases

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A gerund is one of three classes of words called verbals — words based on verbs and expressing an action or a state of being but serving another grammatical function. (The other two are participles and infinitives.) A gerund, which functions as a noun, can consist of a single word or a phrase.

The four types of gerunds and gerund phrases follow:

1. Subject
Gardening is my favorite hobby. (Gardening is normally a verb, but here it is the name of an activity.)

Gardening in the summertime is a challenge because of the heat. (The gerund is followed by a modifying adverbial phrase, forming a gerund phrase.)

2. Direct Object
My neighbors admire my gardening. (The admiration is not for the action of gardening, but for the results of the action.)

I am enjoying my gardening this year. (The direct object of the subject is “my gardening this year.”)

3. Object of Preposition
I have received several awards for my gardening. (The awards have been given for the results of the activity.)

Some people consider my interest in gardening an obsession. (The gerund phrase is “gardening an obsession.”)

4. Subject Complement
My favorite hobby is gardening. (Again, gardening is described as something done, not the act of doing it. The statement is the inverse of the first sentence in this group; here “My favorite hobby” is the subject, and gardening is its complement.)

I do my gardening in the morning. (The phrase “gardening in the morning” is the subject complement.)

Confusion with Present Participle Phrases
If a sentence resembling one of these statements includes a comma, it’s likely to contain a present participle phrase, not a gerund phrase. For example, the sentence “Gardening in the summertime, I built up a resistance to hot weather” contains a present participle phrase, which includes a participle, a verb functioning as an adjective or an adverb.

“Like” Serves Nouns and Pronouns, Not Verbs

Like has suddenly become a noun with the rise of Facebook

 

Like is associated with various uncouth usages — “They were, like, all over the place”; “I was, like, ‘Really?’” — common in speech but easily avoided (except for comic effect) in writing, but many people are unaware that another widespread usage is considered improper in formal writing.

As a preposition meaning “similar to,” like is associated with nouns (“She entered the room like an empress”) and pronouns (“I don’t know anyone like him”). However, when the word connects one clause (a segment of a sentence that includes a subject and a verb) to another, it impersonates a conjunction: “He started dancing like his pants were on fire”; “I arranged the furniture like it had appeared before.”

Note, though, that this usage, though ubiquitous in conversation and in informal writing, is not considered acceptable in formal writing; like should be replaced, respectively, by “as if” (He started dancing as if his pants were on fire”) or as: (“I arranged the furniture as it had appeared before”). Replacing as with “the way” is also acceptable: “I arranged the furniture the way it had appeared before.”

(But beware of hypercorrection; as is erroneous when, with the same intent, it precedes a noun: “She entered the room as an empress” means that the subject literally became, rather than merely resembled, royalty. But “She entered the room as an empress would” is correct, because the emphasis is then on the subject’s action, not on the type of person the subject is compared to.)

In the case of a sentence such as “Like many first-time visitors do, I stared, dumbstruck, at the vista before me,” either change like to as (“As many first-time visitors do, I stared, dumbstruck, at the vista before me”) or delete the verb at the end of the introductory phrase (“Like many first-time visitors, I stared, dumbstruck, at the vista before me”).

A Gerund Is a Verb and a Noun in One

Image from raisyapalis.wordpress.com

 

A gerund is a verb that also functions as a noun. For example, one can say one is engaged in the act of writing, but one can also say that what one is doing is a thing called writing. A gerund can be part of the subject of a sentence (“Writing takes a lot of effort”) or part of the object (“I’ve done a lot of writing”).

Most writers generally employ gerunds without difficulty, but one aspect of their use can be confusing: the genitive case.

In the genitive case, the pronoun associated with the gerund takes a different form than it would when associated with the same word used as a verb. For example, when expressing that you listened to some people talking, you would write, “I heard them talking.” However, if you are emphasizing talking as a thing rather than an action, you would write, “I heard their talking.” Or, consider the difference between “They heard it breaking” (breaking is a verb) and “They heard its breaking” (breaking is a gerund).

Writers should also make a distinction with possessive forms of nouns: “The girl shouting awakened her parents” uses shouting as a verb (girl is the subject); in “The girl’s shouting awakened her parents,” however, shouting is a gerund (and shouting, not girl, is the subject).

In many instances, the difference in connotation is insignificant, but whether one employs a simple verb or uses it as a gerund can change the sense of the sentence.