past tense of "mustn't"

[Tapies]

Hi,
please can you tell me how to express meaning of "mustn't" (when it is only my opinion) in the past tense?

I mustn't do it today.
I ??????? do it yesterday.

I was not allowed or I was not supposed sounds to me as a someone else's order.

Thanks a lot.

 

[bhaisahab]

Hi,
please can you tell me how to express meaning of "mustn't" (when it is only my opinion) in the past tense?

I mustn't do it today.
I ??????? do it yesterday.

I was not allowed or I was not supposed sounds to me as a someone else's order.

Thanks a lot.

You can't use "must/mustn't" in the past tense. You would have to say, "I didn't have to do it yesterday".

 

[Tapies]

Thank you for your answer.

Yes, I know that, but "don't have to" is not "mustn't" in meaning. So if I want to express "mustn't" in the past tense I can't say "didn't have to".

Regards.

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank you for your answer.

Yes, I know that, but "don't have to" is not "mustn't" in meaning. So if I want to express "mustn't" in the past tense I can't say "didn't have to".

Regards.

What is your understanding of "I must not......" in the present tense then?

 

[Tapies]

My understanding has always been this:

[FONT=verdana, geneva, helvetica]"The negative form of 'must' expresses the idea that something is prohibited - this form is very different in meaning than the negative of 'have to'! "
[/FONT](http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blmusthave.htm)

But I might be wrong.

 

[bhaisahab]

My understanding has always been this:

[FONT=verdana, geneva, helvetica]"The negative form of 'must' expresses the idea that something is prohibited - this form is very different in meaning than the negative of 'have to'! "
[/FONT](http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blmusthave.htm)

But I might be wrong.

This is a quote from your link: "[FONT=verdana, geneva, helvetica]IMPORTANT: The past form of 'have to' and 'must' is 'had to'. Must does not exist in the past." So, the verb "to have" is employed for the past: "Yesterday I had to go to work". How then, are you going to write that it wasn't necessary for you to go to work using the verb "to have"? "I didn't have to go to work yesterday".[/FONT]

 

[bhaisahab]

Before the auxilliary "did" came into use in English you would have used "Hadn't to".

 

[emsr2d2]

Before the auxilliary "did" came into use in English you would have used "Hadn't to".

I remember my grandfather saying, for instance "I hadn't to go to work yesterday because it was Sunday". It never really occurred to me why he used this.

Presumably, before "did" came into use as an auxiliary, "I didn't go to work yesterday", would have been the rather archaic "I went not to work".

Interesting!

 

[bhaisahab]

I remember my grandfather saying, for instance "I hadn't to go to work yesterday because it was Sunday". It never really occurred to me why he used this.

Presumably, before "did" came into use as an auxiliary, "I didn't go to work yesterday", would have been the rather archaic "I went not to work".

Interesting!

Yes, "I went not" but, probably more likely, "I hadn't to go". It is interesting isn't it? I like English wihout the auxilliary "did".

 

[konungursvia]

Hmm. I thought the past form of must is must. Like cost.

 

[Nightmare85]

bhaisahab, I don't think "didn't have to" is okay here.
Since he's talking about must and not about need, we should listen to your other advice:
I had to do it yesterday. :up: -> My parents told me that, it was an order.
I must do it yesterday. :up: -> I decided by myself that it was better for my health.
(Past of must = must, as other members have already said.)

Edit
Okay, it actually seems that must does definitely not exist in past.
(I checked some dictionaries.)
Furthermore bhaisahab wrote it in his post too.
So we would need to use had to.
Strange, I also thought must is okay...

**Neither a teacher nor a native speaker.**

Cheers!

 

[Tapies]

Basically I care about meaning.
Please how would you shift the following sentence to the past tense to keep the exact meaning?

"I mustn't tell her about, otherwise she would be disconsolate."

Thank you.

 

[emsr2d2]

Basically I care about meaning.
Please how would you shift the following sentence to the past tense to keep the exact meaning?

"I mustn't tell her about, otherwise she would be disconsolate."

Thank you.

I don't like how they sound, but I came up with:

I had to not tell her about it, or she would have been very upset.
It was important that I not tell her about it, to avoid her becoming disconsolate.

 

[Tapies]

Thank you very much, I meant exactly this.

How would you say it you like it sounds? ;-)

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank you very much, I meant exactly this.

How would you say it you like it sounds? ;-)

Of the two versions I suggested, the first sounds better. Personally, I would probably have said "I couldn't tell her or she'd have been really upset". This, however, does not convey quite the same idea as "must not/had to not", although I think other native speakers would probably know what I meant.

 

[Allen165]

If you want to express a prohibition, then why not simply say, "I wasn't allowed to tell her about it..."?

Not a teacher.

 

[Tapies]

"I couldn't tell her ..." or "I had to not tell her ..." is the answer for me.
Thank you really a lot! Best regards.

 

[emsr2d2]

If you want to express a prohibition, then why not simply say, "I wasn't allowed to tell her about it..."?

Not a teacher.

Prohibition suggests that someone else has told you not to tell her about it. The meaning I'm trying to convey is that I had to stop myself telling her about it, in order to avoid upsetting her.
It's not really that you're not allowed to tell her, more that you have realised that it would be a very bad idea to tell her and therefore you have decided that you "must not tell her".
A very slight difference in meaning, yet we can and do use the same word for it sometimes!

 

[konungursvia]

bhaisahab, I don't think "didn't have to" is okay here.
Since he's talking about must and not about need, we should listen to your other advice:
I had to do it yesterday. :up: -> My parents told me that, it was an order.
I must do it yesterday. :up: -> I decided by myself that it was better for my health.
(Past of must = must, as other members have already said.)

Edit
Okay, it actually seems that must does definitely not exist in past.
(I checked some dictionaries.)
Furthermore bhaisahab wrote it in his post too.
So we would need to use had to.
Strange, I also thought must is okay...

**Neither a teacher nor a native speaker.**

Cheers!

I'm not entirely sure it doesn't exist in the past: Here we have several examples in the British National Corpus of constructions which appear to be must in the past: BNC Simple Search .

They fit the pattern "he knew he must...." which, by analogy with "he knew he had," and in contradistinction to the unattractive "he knew he has" appears to show this exists.

 

[Raymott]

Since he's talking about must and not about need, we should listen to your other advice:
I had to do it yesterday. :up: -> My parents told me that, it was an order.
That's OK.
I must do it yesterday[STRIKE]. :up: [/STRIKE]-> I decided by myself that it was better for my health.
That's NOT OK. "I must do it yesterday" is not a proper sentence.

R.