was/have been taught

[2006]

Casiopea, Your last comment surprises me. What was not made clear?

[Casiopea]

Casiopea, Your last comment surprises me. What was not made clear?

My apologies. My intention was not to shock you. On the contrary, I was hoping you might want to clarify your statement--if not for those of us who are following this thread, for the benefit of our members who access these threads.

Andrew

I didn't say that perfect tense is never needed

I understand you are replying to Andrew, but which post and what comment? As it stands, your statement is vague, not to mention ambiguous. Are you saying Andrew was mistaken in thinking you had said the perfect tense is never needed; i.e., You "didn't say" that at all; those weren't your words, or are you saying the perfect tense is needed, but not in the particular example set under discussion, a statement you "didn't say"; i.e., clearly state or make clear in your post(s)? Which "didn't say"?

I trust you see my point.

[2006]

You don't have to apologize; I wasn't shocked. I will try to "clarify", but one can't keep going back for newcomers. They have to read all the posts to follow the conversation.

Andrew said, "They are not the same. If they were we wouldn't need a perfect tense!" (my underlining)
So I said, "I didn't say that perfect tense is never needed;..."

Of course perfect tense is needed, but that doesn't mean its meaning is always different from other tenses. Perfect tense is often just another way of saying the same thing that you can say with another tense, especially simple past tense.

However, in the following sentences the meanings are different.
I was worried about that for a long time. (in the past, but not now)
I have been worried about that for a long time. (still worried)

The above difference is what Andrew was claiming for the two "I (was) (have been) taught....." sentences, but those two sentences are different from the "worried" sentences. You can be worried and then stop worrying, in which case the action has stopped. (Worrying is an active thing.)
But if you were taught something, that's it. (It was passive.) You can forget it or stop believing it, but you still were taught it.

So one needs to understand what the sentence is saying, and not just say that the perfect tense meaning must be different, or otherwise perfect tense wouldn't need to exist. Its meaning can be different from other tenses and it can be the same. It depends on the sentences.

[irpond]

[/QUOTE]Now, if you say 'I had been taught that is wrong to......', that suggests that you forgot or now don't believe what you were taught.[/QUOTE]

I disagree, 2006. Without a context, we cannot know whether the speaker forgot or no longer believes it. How about:

"I had been taught that it is wrong to do this before I found out how useful the rule really is."

[2006]

irpond
I just added a previously omitted "it" to the sentence that you quoted. 'I had been taught that it is wrong to......'
Otherwise I have nothing to add to what I already said, and I think this thread has pretty much run its course.

Jason72
It's my sentence and my conclusion. If you don't agree, that's fine.

[Andrew Whitehead]

I was talking about the two sentences in question

So was I. They are different for the reasons I gave, and that is why we have tenses.

Look at these sentences:

I walked to work
I was walking to work
I have walked to work


Do they all have different meanings or not?