"By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed"
Hello,
When we need to say at what time a museum closes at the end of a day we can use the preposition "by" like in
"By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed".
Present Perfect is usually used with "by", but here there is a general statement about the working hours. Is Present Perfect fine here or we need to use Present Simple here?
Thanks
Re: "By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
milan2003_07 
When we need to say at what time a museum closes at the end of a day we can use the preposition "by" like in
"By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed".
Present Perfect is usually used with "by", but here there is a general statement about the working hours. Is Present Perfect fine here or we need to use Present Simple here?
You have asked about three different questions there.
If we need to say at what time a museum closes, then we simply say, "The museum closes at 6 pm/6 o' clock'.
Re: "By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed"
Or just 'The museum closes at six'. (Nobody's going to think you mean 6am.)
Re: "By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed"
Thanks!!!
If I need to make a sentence with "by" at the beginning, how should I say? My option is "By 6pm the museum will have closed". Can we somehow use "by" and one of the tenses except Perfect tenses (like Future Perfect in my option)?
Re: "By 6 o'clock p.m. the museum has closed/closes/will have closed"
Quote:
Originally Posted by
milan2003_07 If I need to make a sentence with "by" at the beginning, how should I say? My option is "By 6pm the museum will have closed". Can we somehow use "by" and one of the tenses except Perfect tenses (like Future Perfect in my option)?
You can use 'by' whenever it's appropriate, but you have to recognise that it means something different from 'at'. This difference has little to do with tenses.
In Elbonia, where they are very precise about time, if the museum is scheduled to close at six, then it closes/will close at six. in Disjunctia, where they are far more relaxed about time, if the museum is scheduled to close at six, it may close at any time between four and eight. We can be fairly sure that it will have closed by nine.
