[shun]

Originally Posted by riverkid

We can use past tense FORM to be more polite, more deferential.

Originally Posted by riverkid

"Did you want something to eat?"
By using 'did' instead of 'do', it's a softer question but the reference isn't past time. It's asking now about a near future.

My reply: Politeness!! I want to say how excellent a reason it is. But I don't want to create confusion now. It is a very bad explanation. Politeness is a kind of Meaning. As I have repeatedly pointed out, you can never use Meaning to explain tense.

Are you aware how frequently we use "Do you want something to eat?", rather than "Did you want something to eat?"? So, according to your reasoning, may I presume, using Simple Present "Do you want something to eat?" will be less polite? Then why do we usually want to be impolite?

Look at the Time:
Will you ask the so-called 'softer' question that violates the time: "Did you eat something?", instead of "Did you want something to eat?"
Can't you see the time implications of the two statements are different? It is about Time, rather than Politeness.

Using Time, I have explained for so many times examples like these:
Ex: Did you want something to eat?
Ex: I was going to buy some beef for dinner.
Ex: Where did you want to travel, sir?

But to you, they are the whales. "The very great danger in someone studying whales is that they are never sure if the behavior they are describing is truly whale-like until they ask the whales."

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By the way, it seems that you have missed the following point of using Past Perfect. Allow me to recap the time flow:

I talked about Past Perfect: "In the news, it is when we needed to use Past Perfect now, which indicates things happened before a past case."

You replied: "You will have to provide examples, Shun. In the one example that you gave before, Past Perfect would have been grammatically inappropriate."

Then I reminded you of the example. But it seemed you have missed it, so I want to ask again. In the news I have quoted (and posted on the previous page), why are there Past Perfect used, as in the following?
1. We ask that European solidarity is expressed as soon as possible about Lebanon," Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy TOLD France Info radio, adding he had asked EU president Finland to call a meeting in Brussels early next week.
2. France has pledged to send only 200 extra troops to Lebanon, disappointing Washington and the United Nations, which had hoped it would form the backbone of an expanded U.N. force.

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Of course, there is also another important point you have missed.

I am afraid you have to quote some examples or explanations of the Past Family, like "in the past three years", to prove your point:

Originally Posted by riverkid

Yes, there are even some grammars that have screwed this up. But any decent descriptive grammar points up these prescriptive mistakes and rectifies them. Both the CGEL and Michael Swan's book do this.

What are the rectifications? Don't you think you need some examples and explanations to illustrate this?

As you talked about mistakes and their rectifications, you can't argue you don't know what I am talking about, can you?