I can’t even imagine how much time it <had taken/took> VS <will have taken>.

[Tony_M]

I wrote the following sentences.

1. My friend sent me a really long message yesterday. I can’t even imagine how much time it had taken/took.
2. My friend sent me a really long message yesterday. I can’t even imagine how much time it will have taken.

What is the difference in meaning between "had taken/took" and "will have taken"?

 

[Tarheel]

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. There is no meaning to a phrase you are never going to use. I would say that I can't imagine how long it took and would not even consider the others.

 

[jutfrank]

I can't imagine how long it must have taken.

 

[Tony_M]

I can't imagine how long it must have taken.

This doesn't answer the question.

 

[jutfrank]

Because it's a terrible question. Don't make up poor sentences and then ask us what you mean.

If you want to learn how to say something, tell us exactly what you mean and we'll tell you how best to say it.

 

[Skrej]

They're grammatical, but meaningless. The time references are conflicting, especially the latter. Unless you're writing about some kind of sci-fi where you can see the past from some point in the future, it just doesn't work at all.

We can't answer your question about difference in meaning when they're both meaningless. All we can do is try and guess at your intent and provide a suitable sentence, as Jutfrank did in #4.

 

[Tony_M]

Because it's a terrible question.

Thank you for your candor. It's refreshing yet uncalled for.

 

[jutfrank]

It's not uncalled for, Tony_M. This is the 'Ask a Teacher' section—expect to get teachers' answers.

 

[Tony_M]

It's not uncalled for, Tony_M. This is the 'Ask a Teacher' section—expect to get teachers' answers.

True. It's not called "Ask a Splenetic Teacher," is it?

 

[jutfrank]

I'm not being splenetic. If you want it, this is my advice to you:

When you're asking about meaning, there are two main kinds of question that you can ask:

1) Give us an authentic piece of language in its natural context, and ask us what it means.

If you do this, we can tell you whether it's correct in the first place, whether it's a good example to study, whether there's any ambiguity, connotation, implication, and so on. When you do this, make sure you provide plenty of context and always cite the source.

2) Describe to us a thought you have in mind, and then ask us how best to say it.

If you do this, give us some context within which you would want to use the particular sentence, with information about the listener, the situation, the tone you want to adopt, level of formality, register, style, and anything else that might help us understand what you want.

Thank you.

 

[Tony_M]

Thank you

You're welcome!

 

[Annabel Lee]

2. My friend sent me a really long message yesterday. I can’t even imagine how much time it will have taken.

It's hard to say what Tony_M had in mind by using the future perfect, but I think it's possible in a context where the speaker believes he will find out later how long the writing of the message took. I think of Renaat Declerck's treatment of a sentence like "That will be the milkman" in a context in which someone just knocked at one's the door; the use of the future is to refer forward to when the speaker goes to the door and finds out whether it is (or was) indeed the milkman at the door.

With that in mind, let me vary Tony_M's example by adding a middle sentence:

2a. My friend sent me a really long message yesterday. I'm going to ask him later how long it took him to write it. I can't even imagine how much time it will have taken.​

"I can't even imagine how much time it will have taken" = "I can't even imagine how much time I will find out that it took."

 

[5jj]

I think that in all the examples given, we have the will of certainty rather than of futurity.

 

[Tony_M]

I think that in all the exaamples given, we have the will of certainty rather than of futurity,

Can't "it will have taken" mean "it definitely took" or something similar that conveys the idea of conviction? -> My friend sent me a really long message yesterday. I can’t even imagine how much time I'm sure it took.

 

[Skrej]

This thread has become unnecessarily snarky, so I'm closing it to allow everyone to cool down.

As a general reminder to everyone, please be courteous. If you don't like an answer, it's fine to respectfully ask for clarification or point out it's not addressing the core issue.

However, please keep in mind the limits of text-based communication, where curtness and sarcasm may easily be misconstrued as confrontational or belligerent.

If someone wants to contribute additional constructive comments to this thread, you can PM a moderator to open it back up after a cooling-off period.