[General] no stuff for the has-beens

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Hucky

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Hi again,

The debate in one of my recent threads has reminded me of a linguistic phenomenom I came across some time ago. I`ve been bearing it in some corner of my mind, not being really conscious of it anymore, and as it struck me once it still strikes me now being aware of it again. What I am talking about it this: The present perfect - as the term itself suggests and as can be read in numerous grammar books - is mainly a present tense. Yet, there seems to be some evidence to insinuate its usage as a past tense. You can check in any monolingual dictionary that a "has-been" is not someone who used to be famous and popular and still is, but - contrary to the present perfect sense - someone who is no more famous or popular, i.e. someone who was famous and popular once upon a time, who is a goner. The same applies to the stale joke that most of you will be familiar with. It goes like this:

Customer: Waiter! What sort of soup is this?
Waiter: It`s bean soup, sir.
Customer I don`t care what it`s been. I want to know what it is now.

Here "has been" in the pun obviously refers to the past, doesn`t it? Can anyone of you account for that?
 

Airone

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Great subject!

Remember, grammarians examine language and then try to distill "rules". Obviously rules or guidelines cannot take into account every circumstance.

I wouldn't say personally that present perfect is mainly a present tense, but I'm sure some would disagree. How do you measure if it's "mainly" a present or past tense, anyway? Google hits? Appearances in a corpus? It's not that easy.

"Rules" typically follow use, not the other way around. In the UK I've heard that it's more common to say "Will's just gone out" whereas in the US people would more likely say "Will just went out," but we mean the same thing.


Hi again,

The present perfect - as the term itself suggests and as can be read in numerous grammar books - is mainly a present tense. Yet, there seems to be some evidence to insinuate its usage as a past tense...Can anyone of you account for that?
 

5jj

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I wouldn't say personally that present perfect is mainly a present tense, but I'm sure some would disagree. How do you measure if it's "mainly" a present or past tense,
In form it is clearly a present tense, constructed with the present tense of HAVE; it contrasts with the past perfect, constructed with the past tense of HAVE.

In function, the present perfect appears to always have some connection with both past and present. The situation referred to ocuurred, or at least began, in the past, and has some connection, in the speaker's mind, with the present.

As you rightly point out, a speaker of AmE is more likely to say "Will just went out" while a speaker of BrE is more likely to say "Will has just gone out." While there is no doubt that both speakers are referring to exactly the same situation, it is impossible to tell whether they see it in exactly the same way. It may be that the speaker of AmE considers the word 'just' to be a past-time word (like, for example 'yesterday') whereas the speaker of BrE considers it to be a word that refers to a past time so recent that it can be considered part of the present period.

I have never seen the present perfect used with no connection at all to to present time, though the connection is not infrequently implied rather than explicitly stated. I have heard it so used, but only informally, in situations which suggest that the speaker has run two ideas together. Equally, I have never encountered a present perfect used exclusively with present reference.

"It has been soup." The present perfect is used in this joke precisely because it makes the pun possible. In real life "it was soup, once" is probably a more likely utterance. However, the present pefect is not impossible - the speakers have the soup in front of them as they speak, the connection with the present. It would not be a natural utterance if the speaker were describing a bowl of something that had been served at a restaurant the previous day.
 

birdeen's call

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"It has been soup." The present perfect is used in this joke precisely because it makes the pun possible. In real life "it was soup, once" is probably a more likely utterance. However, the present pefect is not impossible - the speakers have the soup in front of them as they speak, the connection with the present. It would not be a natural utterance if the speaker were describing a bowl of something that had been served at a restaurant the previous day.
It's not a very good pun for another reason in my opinion. Consider stress in the dialogue. The customer says:

Waiter! What sort of soup is this?

Now, the waiter answers the question:

It`s bean soup, sir.

He stresses "bean", because this word is the answer to the question. The customer understood "bean" as "been", so we have:

It`s been soup, sir.

But the stress didn't move, so the customer must interpret its placement. When would "been" be stressed? Only if that were the part of the sentence thought (by the waiter) to be questioned/questionable. So the customer must think that the waiter has opposed strongly to the idea that it hasn't been soup. He doesn't care about what has been, so he could say:

I don`t care if it`s been soup. I want to know what it is now.

with "if" instead of "what", because he thinks the waiter is discussing a yes-no problem. But it's an unlikely utterance again now, so I don't think there's much to be done to help the joke... :-(

I may be wrong of course.
 
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Hucky

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Great subject!

Remember, grammarians examine language and then try to distill "rules". Obviously rules or guidelines cannot take into account every circumstance.

I wouldn't say personally that present perfect is mainly a present tense, but I'm sure some would disagree. How do you measure if it's "mainly" a present or past tense, anyway? Google hits? Appearances in a corpus? It's not that easy.

"Rules" typically follow use, not the other way around. In the UK I've heard that it's more common to say "Will's just gone out" whereas in the US people would more likely say "Will just went out," but we mean the same thing.

ref. para 1) That goes without saying! You can count me in!

ref. para 2) Whatever the essence of this entity called present perfect is, one thing can be taken for granted at least from a synchronic point of view: actions or states rendered by it do not refer to the past alone, i.e. without any link to the present. That is why explicit reference to the past as expressed by temporal adverbials rule out its use categorically as in this agrammatical sentence.

E.g.: It has rained / has been raining yesterday.

That being said, the subjects of the current thread in question is a puzzle. Maybe it is simply inexplicable as language cannot be reduced to formal logic. If it is, I´ll content myself with it. If, however someone has a reasonable explanation in store, all the better!

ref. para 3) Far away be it from me to enlarge upon the fundamentals of grammar theory (none of our business here, apart from the foreseeable desastrous consequences this would trigger), but let me in brief put it this way: I think it corresponds more to the linguistic reality to regard the relation between rule and use as an interaction, and analogously, the relation between descriptive and prescriptive grammar.

Cheerio

Hucky
 

5jj

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I may be wrong of course.
Assuming that we are working with 'been', I think that the customer might place the stress in these places:

1. I don't care if it's been soup...
2. I don't care if it has been soup...
3. I don't care if it's been soup...

Given that the waiter has stressed 'bean', I feel that #1 is the most likely and #3 the least likely.

Incidentally, when it was fresh, the joke was probably as funny as any punning joke of this nature.
 

birdeen's call

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Assuming that we are working with 'been', I think that the customer might place the stress in these places:

1. I don't care if it's been soup...
2. I don't care if it has been soup...
3. I don't care if it's been soup...

Given that the waiter has stressed 'bean', I feel that #1 is the most likely and #3 the least likely.
Right, but I was trying to say that "what" in

I don`t care what it`s been


was out of place and "if" was necessary instead of it. I wasn't saying that the customer must have stressed "if", even though I underlined the word. I did it to make the change from "what" more visible. I'm sorry about the misunderstanding it caused.
 

5jj

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I'm sorry about the misunderstanding it caused.
I'm sorry I missed your point about the inappropriateness of 'what'. It seems obvious now, but the joke is sometimes told in that form and still gets a laugh (if it hasn't been heard before). It shouldn't work, but it appears to.
 

Hucky

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In form it is clearly a present tense, constructed with the present tense of HAVE; it contrasts with the past perfect, constructed with the past tense of HAVE.

In function, the present perfect appears to always have some connection with both past and present. The situation referred to ocuurred, or at least began, in the past, and has some connection, in the speaker's mind, with the present.

As you rightly point out, a speaker of AmE is more likely to say "Will just went out" while a speaker of BrE is more likely to say "Will has just gone out." While there is no doubt that both speakers are referring to exactly the same situation, it is impossible to tell whether they see it in exactly the same way. It may be that the speaker of AmE considers the word 'just' to be a past-time word (like, for example 'yesterday') whereas the speaker of BrE considers it to be a word that refers to a past time so recent that it can be considered part of the present period.

I have never seen the present perfect used with no connection at all to to present time, though the connection is not infrequently implied rather than explicitly stated. I have heard it so used, but only informally, in situations which suggest that the speaker has run two ideas together. Equally, I have never encountered a present perfect used exclusively with present reference.

"It has been soup." The present perfect is used in this joke precisely because it makes the pun possible. In real life "it was soup, once" is probably a more likely utterance. However, the present pefect is not impossible - the speakers have the soup in front of them as they speak, the connection with the present. It would not be a natural utterance if the speaker were describing a bowl of something that had been served at a restaurant the previous day.

No one with the slightest idea of what the present perfect is would deny the propositions put forward in your paragraphs 1-4.

But I doubt whether your attempt to justify the tense in para 5 can hold water. Having the soup right in front of him, the customer asks in order to identify the soup what sort of soup it is and not what sort of soup is has been, which would be a nonsensical question ("Waiter, has this (always) been a tomato soup, or has it gone through different evolutionary stages of soup development, from tomato soup via mushroom soup to bean soup?")

And even if it is for the pun´s sake, I cannot imagine any English native speaker with half a brain to misunderstand the waiters reply this way. With American speakers it would be even more unlikely because of the alternative weak ponunciation of been (just like the word bin) because it lacks a phonetic basis for confusion.

So, can anybody tell me if this is a real joke that once was around and popular. Has anyone ever come across it outside an English textbook (that´s where I found it)?

This observation has just given me a hint. If an English native speaker could not misunderstand it, a German native speaker with only a few scraps of English could indeed! Simply because the corresponding formal structure in German, the Perfekt, is primarily a preterite. That´s why it is one of the most complicated chapters in English grammar for speakers of German as a mother tongue to get used to the different usage of the English present perfect, which always remains a potential source of linguistic interference and confusion. I have just recalled another joke in an English coursebook designed for German-speaking students. This joke was also based on a typical mistake made by native speakers of German, and thus comprehensible for those only who are familiar with German. It went: The impatient customer asks the waitress: "When will I become a steak?" - The funny waitress replied: "Never, I hope, sir!"
This so called joke was meant to warn the students not to mix up the English verb to become with the German verb bekommen, which in turn means to get. Only problem in the above case is that I spotted the joke in question here in a British student´s book.

But nevertheless best thanks for your attempt to demystify the enigma!
 

5jj

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But I doubt whether your attempt to justify the tense in para 5 can hold water.
At my age I have given up worrying about holding water or satisfying Hucky. Fare well.
 

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De gustibus non est disputandum

The same applies to the stale joke that most of you will be familiar with. It goes like this:

Customer: Waiter! What sort of soup is this?
Waiter: It`s bean soup, sir.
Customer I don`t care what it`s been. I want to know what it is now.

Here "has been" in the pun obviously refers to the past, doesn`t it? Can anyone of you account for that?

There's no accounting for taste or, I would add, humour. Absurd humour is funny because it's absurd not because we can account for it. Try watching Monty Python; your head might explode. :-D

There are attempts to explain humour with linguistics and philosophy of language but they still can't explain why saying poop is funny. :-D
 

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At my age I have given up worrying about holding water or satisfying Hucky. Fare well.

Just in passing, I have to express my liking of the above statement expressis verbis because the like button didn´t accept my click. Obviously it didn´t by it that I was in good earnest. But I was, and I am - (sorry, I have been!) - really!

I don´t think freezeframe will mind me borrowing his wonderful wording (I coudn´t have couched it better. Is it mere coincidence that he wrote next?)
(abbreviations and additions by me in brackets)

"There is no accounting for taste, I would add, humour. Absurd humour is funny because it´s absurd not because we can account for it. (...) There are attempts to explain humour with linguistics and philosophy of language but they still can´t explain why (it) is funny.

Yes, and if I dare add a personal remark: The older I grow, the more humour I aplly to things and people surrounding me. I`m not sure if the world around us has become more humorous (I`m doubtful about this), or if I more than in former times notice the funny sides of things.

I wish you all a good weekend. Why not trying to discover the humorous aspects of life? Laughing more will not only improve the quality of the weekend, but of life in general.
 

Hucky

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Dear freezeframe,

You´ve taken the words right out of my mouth, or better still: heart.* I´m none of those who laugh or smile about a joke only when indepth liguistic analysis has established the justification of the laughter.

Yet, in case of our issue here the alleged joke is far away from being funny. What makes it interesting, however, is the linguistic point of view. I´d simply like to know if there are instances when the present perfect is used as a past tense (without any link to the present).

If I could choose, however, to concern myself with (serious) linguistics or the obvious and hidden aspects of humour, I just wouldn´t hesitate a moment. Yet, it may just as well go hand in hand.

With funny greetings

Hucky

* Your wording is even that good that I dared quote it in parts in the previous contribution. I hope that´s alright.
 

freezeframe

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Yet, in case of our issue here the alleged joke is far away from being funny.


The thing is, I think it's funny. You cannot say whether something is funny or not, only whether it's funny or not to you.

And thank you for your compliments on my wording.

PS I'm a "she".
 

Hucky

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Dear freezeframe,

Against the backdrop of my newly obtained knowledge* contained in your PS I can hardly contradict you anymore. But I was not about to do so anyway, I assure you. Let me agree with you now on what you have written concerning the subjectivity of what fun is. What matters most is that you perceived the joke as funny. I`m glad to hear about that, all the more since that way I am to some degree accountable for your fun. I am always pleased to amuse others. If only I could always succeed in doing so!

Yet, as I wrote before, apart from this - my major concern - I also take an interest in understanding why and in how far people interpret identical messages differently. If this is not going to reduce your fun level, I`d like to come up with a question. (I desist from asking you questions about the personal record of your English language acquisition.) Getting aware of your mother tongue, however, I`d like to ask you if you consider the present perfect a past tense.

Even though in face of an arid question, I remain with best wishes for a funny, sunny day!

Hucky

* As if I had had a subconscious inkling that you are a "she", I was going to address you yesterday in a female form. Again mere coincidence?
 

freezeframe

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I`d like to ask you if you consider the present perfect a past tense

LOL

I can direct you to a blog of one Ukrainian gentleman who'll be glad to fight this out with you for a very long time. I, however, have no vested or other interests in the question.

Good try. :up:
 

Hucky

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LOL

I can direct you to a blog of one Ukrainian gentleman who'll be glad to fight this out with you for a very long time. I, however, have no vested or other interests in the question.

Good try. :up:

A simple "yes" or "no" would have done. But it`s alright like that. Thank you for offering me that person. But first of all, I don`t have that much time, and I don`t feel like entering a debate either as there are obvious things beyond discussion because they can be checked and proven with ease. (If I were keen on debating, I wouldn`t have to change the spot.) Different tense-aspect-systems are a potential (and even a real) trap to misinterpret a similar construction in a different language. And by the way, I don`t think forums are for fighting for or against anything or anybody (although one could from time to time get the impression that they are regarded like that), but for learning (and having fun into the bargain!).

Have a good time! And never get rid of fun!

Hucky
 

Hucky

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The thing is, I think it's funny. You cannot say whether something is funny or not, only whether it's funny or not to you.

LOL! ROFL! – He who laughs last, laughs longest. Your thesis has proven right again: What is funny depends on the subjectivity of the respective individual.

Well, I for one think that´s a good one, nay one of the best ever! It has even got a tinge of the tragicomic. You will certainly not find it funny. But that´s really unequalled: a harmless question has changed your identity. Meantime, you have mutated into an English native speaker. That´s what science calls evolution! (A former thread member will be in raptures about the phrase evolving language and feel confirmed in her views.) Linguists, who will rejoice, should be made aware of this rare phenomenon of a speaker´s transition from one native language to another, in doing so even skipping the borderlines of different linguistic branches, from Slavonic to Germanic. In face of the unfortunate outcome, however, they will lament the progress achieved by speaking two mother tongues (just two?). Here is a real-life example (quotation):



Location: Toronto, Ontario (Canada)
Native language: Canadian English, Russian

If you still know him now, you would say:
I knew Tom since when he was just five years old.
I have known Tom since when he was just five years old. ( I would rather use this.)

This lady doesn´t speak English, but volumes about her "native language"!
 
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