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Thread: the passive voice with exact time in the past

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    ostap77 is offline Key Member
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    Default the passive voice with exact time in the past

    "I have been bitten by a dog 2 years and 6 months ago.After many years is rabies still dangerous?"

    Is it "I was bitten by........." or "I've been bitten....."?

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    Default Re: the passive voice with exact time in the past

    I was bitten by a dog two and one-half years ago. After so many years, does rabies still pose a threat?

    John
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    ostap77 is offline Key Member
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    Threadstarter / Original Poster

    Default Re: the passive voice with exact time in the past

    Quote Originally Posted by JohnParis View Post
    I was bitten by a dog two and one-half years ago. After so many years, does rabies still pose a threat?

    John
    Would this be one of the examples when the present perfect is used with exat time in the past? "I've been there.....last week."

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    Default Re: the passive voice with exact time in the past

    Only the past tense works for me here.

    'I was bitten by a dog two and a half years ago. Does rabies still pose a threat after all this time?'

    Rover
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    Default Re: the passive voice with exact time in the past

    Quote Originally Posted by ostap77 View Post
    Would this be one of the examples when the present perfect is used with exat time in the past? "I've been there.....last week."

    If that's me you're quoting, I gave it as an example of the things people say- they start without a specific time and then add one, which would not be acceptable in writing. It was an example of how speech works and not of a correct grammatical form.
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    Threadstarter / Original Poster

    Default Re: the passive voice with exact time in the past

    Quote Originally Posted by Tdol View Post
    If that's me you're quoting, I gave it as an example of the things people say- they start without a specific time and then add one, which would not be acceptable in writing. It was an example of how speech works and not of a correct grammatical form.
    Yes sir I did! The quote in post #1 is not something I've made up.

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    Tdol is online now Editor, UsingEnglish.com
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    Default Re: the passive voice with exact time in the past

    Putting this in front of it effectively turns into into fiction:
    Would this be one of the examples when the present perfect is used with exact time in the past?
    That is not what I said, not close to what I said and is such a distortion that it makes me wonder whether you bothered reading what I said. What do you think ... is doing in that example? Please do not abuse people's answers by twisting them like this. I gave an example of a feature that could occur in the flow speech and not of what you said.

    This is what I said:

    That's normal in speech- as we're changing our thoughts, moving around, hesitating, forgetting what we've just said, repeating ourselves, etc, we say all sorts of things. Speech is more fluid- I could say I've been there...last week, but I wouldn't write it- it's simply that I said something, then added another which is fine in speech, but would make it wrong in writing.
    (emphasis added)

    How do you get from that to your "one of the examples when the present perfect is used with exact time in the past". What part of wrong don't you fully understand? In fact, you were making things up by putting the nonsense next to it.
    Last edited by Tdol; 04-Nov-2011 at 21:59.
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