How would you define the future time?

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MrPedantic

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My reply: I will choose #2.

:up: :up:

And what about here: which one would you choose?

1. "What do you do at the weekend?" "I write letters of complaint to the President of the United States of America."

2. "What do you do at the weekend?" "I am writing letters of complaint to the President of the United States of America."

All the best,

MrP
 

shun

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You're the greatest avoider. I am afraid I can never get the definition of the present time from you. :lol:
 

sandhya.sha

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Then it follows that the next millisecond is also the future time.

Then where is the present time?:lol:
Is the present time just this one millisecond, not even the second one? If so, who can notice any present time at all?

I suppose we should not go too much into a philosophical debate as to what is present, past and future. ;-)

As kids, we all learnt that yesterday is past, today is present, and tomorrow is future, in our 'Tense' classes. so why don't we concentrate on that? Probably the query was about the usage of future tense, or the way you can express future time.

You can use 'will' for indicating a future action, anything that is going to happen after sometime (definitely not in this millisecond :)) My brther will go to Australia tomorrow.

There are other ways to expresst eh future sense.
  1. going to - My brother is going to Australia tomorrow.
  2. goes - My brother goes to Australia tomorrow.
  3. is to - My brother is to go to Australia tomorrow.
At present (in this millisecond, to be exact) I remember only this much. Please contribute to this list.
 

sandhya.sha

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You're the greatest avoider. I am afraid I can never get the definition of the present time from you. :lol:

First of all, let us get this clear. It is not the Present Time we discuss in grammar, but the Present Tense. Tenses of verbs. If you use the present tense of a verb, e.g study, it is used in many contexts - not just in the present time. Let us see the follwoing examples:

  1. My sister studies in that school.
  2. My uncles comes tomorrow.
In the first sentence, my sister is studying in that school not just at this moment, but the whole day, whole week , whole year. It is a regular activity.
In the second sentence, my uncle will come the next day. Here the verb 'come' is followed by tomorrow (which is definitely the future time) to make it a future activity.

So, you see, the present form of the verb 'study' is used in many contexts, to express different time of actions.

To clarify your doubt, let me explain it further.
When you say present time, it can have many divisions or categories.

  • Aeons
  • Eras
  • Centuries
  • Decades
  • Years
  • Months
  • Weeks
  • Days
  • Minutes
  • Seconds
  • Milliseconds
can you get more such divisions?
So, in each of these divisions, you can have the Past time, Present time, and Future time.
For example, Last year, This year, Next year
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
So, what is past time, present time, and future time according to this? isn't it very philosophical?
So , when you talk of present time, first decide to which division of time it belongs. is it a year, month, week, day, minute, second or millisecond.

By the way, what was the situation that prompted you to find out the definition of present time? could you give the context, please?
 

Tdol

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My reply: If we should be able to "use the present to talk about past, present or future time", are you sure we cannot use the past or the future to talk about the present? If we really can, what a mess in time expression.
You're changing the argument and ignoring what I said. I quite clearly stated that I was questioning your view of tense, not the adverbs, and we can use the tenses in the way I have described.

Actually, we don't use the present second to talk about the past second.
Also, we don't use Today to talk about Yesterday.

We can use 'now' in the past- in narratives, it is common enough to see things like 'now he was really scared', so we can use a present adverb to talk about the past. :roll:
 

shun

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Tdol said:
You're changing the argument and ignoring what I said. I quite clearly stated that I was questioning your view of tense, not the adverbs, and we can use the tenses in the way I have described.
My reply: I am afraid you have been confused and indeed changed my question from Time to Tense. I am asking of the definition of "the present time", not the present tense. I can get the idea of the present tense from anywhere.

Also, I was not talking simply about adverbs. Rather, I am talking about "time adverbs", actually Time itself. If I don't use time adverbs, how can I refer to time at all?
Can we talk about various Presidents without mentioning their names? I don't think so. But if I mention their names, will you say I have changed to the subject of nouns?

If we are allowed to use names to refer to Presidents, we may use time adverbs to speak of different kinds of time, as Sandhya.sha also did around here.
 

MrPedantic

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You're the greatest avoider. I am afraid I can never get the definition of the present time from you. :lol:

Hello Shun

Sandhya.sha has put it much better than I could. We are talking about the present tense, not the present time. "Present tense" is a convenient label, not a description.

I don't deny that "present time" is a very interesting subject, in a philosophical or scientific context; but my answers are intended to relate only to the "present tense".

All the best,

MrP
 

shun

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Sandhya.sha said:
As kids, we all learnt that yesterday is past, today is present, and tomorrow is future, in our 'Tense' classes. so why don't we concentrate on that?
My reply: So why do we concentrate on that? Why will we use any tense with 'Today'? Are you using only Simple Present with Today?

Because there are past part, present part, and future part of Today in Today alone, we may use any tense with Today. Are you aware of that? After all, we are not kids anymore.

Also, why have they made up so many tenses? Aren't three tenses enough to express three kinds of time: past, present, and future? Obviously, what we have learnt as kids is not enough.

Also, why don't people around here concentrate on that? Why will they use Meanings like Habit to explain the present?

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Sandhya.sha said:
First of all, let us get this clear. It is not the Present Time we discuss in grammar, but the Present Tense.
My reply: First of all, let us get this clear: I am asking about the present time. You may skip this thread, but you shall not change my subject to match your favorite.
 

shun

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Sandhya.sha said:
To clarify your doubt, let me explain it further.
When you say present time, it can have many divisions or categories.
Aeons
Eras
Centuries
Decades
Years
Months
Weeks
Days
Minutes
Seconds
Milliseconds
My reply: After all, you know about the subject of time. However, my doubt is, they each have past, present, and past parts in itself, so where is the present part? How to define the present part of them?
 

sandhya.sha

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My reply: After all, you know about the subject of time. However, my doubt is, they each have past, present, and past parts in itself, so where is the present part? How to define the present part of them?


I believe you are still confused as to what the so-called "Present" is.
May be the following type of sentence confuses you:
"It happened today".
Generally, today is the 'Present'. Here it refers to something that happened in the earlier part of 'today'. Today is grammatically the "Present". However, as I explained before a day also can have divisions. So, in the evening you refer to something that happened in the morning as a past event. Anything that happened before this particular moment is the past.

What if you say, "It happens today" ? It denotes the future time (not the future tense).
 

riverkid

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Also, why don't people around here concentrate on that? Why will they use Meanings like Habit to explain the present?

You really have this backassward, Shun. Nobody has used 'habit' to explain the present. It's only a name of a form of a verb that we use to denote habitual actions; I brush my teeth; I sometimes watch TV; I eat sushi 3 times per week.

These are all things that are done habitually and the habitual meaning can only be described by using the FORM, thepresent simple tense.


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My reply: First of all, let us get this clear: I am asking about the present time. You may skip this thread, but you shall not change my subject to match your favorite.

Actually, if you'll note, Shun, the name of the thread is the "future time".
 

Tdol

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My reply: I am afraid you have been confused and indeed changed my question from Time to Tense.

Shun, you again trying to change the argument. My response was to your inaccurate statement in https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/114953-post92.html that, and I quote, 'Tense is used to express time', which I said was not a complete view of tense. I was responding to a claim you had made.

Secondly, I said 'the adverbs', which, by virtue of having a definite article, refers clearly to those time adverbs that you had mentioned (including 'today'), and you have not considered for a second the fact that we can use 'now' to refer to past time.
 

shun

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Tdol said:
you have not considered for a second the fact that we can use 'now' to refer to past time.
My reply: I am afraid not. I have considered it. Just because we refer it that way, so it is hard to understand why. That is why I ask you to define 'now'.

By "can", you have only defined the ability of present time. But I am asking of "is". What is the present time? Is the present time the past time?
 

shun

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riverkid said:
Actually, if you'll note, Shun, the name of the thread is the "future time".
My reply: In fact, I am asking about you to define any kind of time – past, present, or future.
 

shun

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MrPedantic said:
I don't deny that "present time" is a very interesting subject, in a philosophical or scientific context; but my answers are intended to relate only to the "present tense".
My reply: Whether you like it or not, English uses tense to speak of time, in any contexts. For example, we are all using tense here. The fact that you vaguely link "present time" to a philosophical or scientific context doesn't mean time is philosophical. Rather, it is scientific and can be as practical as your wrist watch.

Every language has to speak of time, with or without formation of tense. Many languages have seen the importance of time, so they even exercise tense to express it. We cannot regard such necessary and every-minute usage as philosophical, can we?

Most magic performances are interesting. If you don't know their secrets, you will think they are impossible or outrageous. If you know the secret, it is so easy!!

--------------------------
MrPedantic said:
but my answers are intended to relate only to the "present tense".
My reply: That is why I say you have avoided my question of "present time".
 

shun

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Sandhya.sha said:
I believe you are still confused as to what the so-called "Present" is.
May be the following type of sentence confuses you:
"It happened today".
Generally, today is the 'Present'. Here it refers to something that happened in the earlier part of 'today'. Today is grammatically the "Present". However, as I explained before a day also can have divisions. So, in the evening you refer to something that happened in the morning as a past event. Anything that happened before this particular moment is the past.

What if you say, "It happens today" ? It denotes the future time (not the future tense).
My reply: Despite all these you have said by yourself, you still don't see past and future within Today? I am not only confused, but also impressed. The unfortunate thing is, other than me, no one will point out your obvious confusion to you.
 

MrPedantic

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By "my answers are intended to relate only to the present tense", I mean that my answers are not intended to address the philosophical content of your posts.

You can think of it as a meta-temporal comment.

By "a very interesting subject in a philosophical or scientific context", I mean that time is an interesting subject for philosophical discussion.

You can think of it as a meta-threadical comment.

Have a cheery Friday,

MrP
 

MrPedantic

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I think it's just that your post is two minutes fast, Risby...
 
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