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electriclandAnd they say English is hard.
I read somewhere, once upon a time, that we actually only have 2 tenses in English, present and past, and all else is a creation of the same arbitrary Latin-obsessed Victorian pedants that forbade the split infinitive. Can't remember where, though, and I may be putting the estimate a little low. Perhaps some of the language geeks out there can shed some light? I have to admit, we sure do make our auxiliary verbs do a lot of work:
I had gone
I went
I was going
I am going
I go
I will go
I will have gone
I would go
I would have gone
Would you prefer that I go?
(Not a fair example of course, "go" is irregular. Like every second English verb isn't.)
I read somewhere, once upon a time, that we actually only have 2 tenses in English, present and past, and all else is a creation of the same arbitrary Latin-obsessed Victorian pedants that forbade the split infinitive. Can't remember where, though, and I may be putting the estimate a little low. Perhaps some of the language geeks out there can shed some light? I have to admit, we sure do make our auxiliary verbs do a lot of work:
I had gone
I went
I was going
I am going
I go
I will go
I will have gone
I would go
I would have gone
Would you prefer that I go?
(Not a fair example of course, "go" is irregular. Like every second English verb isn't.)
