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Originally Posted by Casiopea Quote: |
Originally Posted by wunaide As it stands, your question doesn't make any sense. | Ouch  |
I wasn't trying to cause you any pain Cas! New Hope may as well have asked
Which one is best?
(i) Close the door when you come into the room.
(ii) I closed the room when I came into the room.
and my answer would have been along the same lines. My (i) would be useful if you wanted to tell someone what to do (Procedural genre - Imperative Mood), while my (ii) would be useful if you wanted to tell someone about something that had happened (Recount genre - Declarative Mood). Neither is "better" than the other! You can't compare apples and oranges - you need to establish exactly what kind of fruit you're trying to grow first.
As is the case with the 3 different genre in NewHope's example, each of my examples has an idiosyncratic grammar that is important in the expression and divination of meaning.
Thus if New Hope was going to write a headline to a news story her/his (i) or (ii) would be along the lines of what is regarded as standard structure for that particular genre, (iii) along the lines of the same for a photo caption and (iv) along the lines of a sentence from the body of the story.
Still need a tissue?