to forget / to have forgotten

[Nathan Mckane]

Hello dear teachers!

I have a question and I would be happy if you answered it for me.

Which one is correct?

It was remiss of you to forget to close the door.
It was remiss of you to have forgotten to close the door.

Thanks,

 

[5jj]

It was remiss of you to forget to close the door.:tick:
It was remiss of you to have forgotten to close the door.X

The being remiss was at the time of forgetting, not after it.

 

[Nathan Mckane]

Thanks for the answer but I have hard time understanding why. Would you give some more examples?

 

[5jj]

Thanks for the answer but I have hard time understanding why. Would you give some more examples?

Let's take a simpler example, with silly instead of remiss (for the benefit of those learners for whom remiss is an unknown word).

It was silly of you to forget to close the door.
You forgot to close the door. That past-time forgetting was past-time silly. It is possible to think of situations in which we now realise that it is (present time) silly that you forgot (past time) to close the door, in which case "It is silly of you to have forgotten to close the door", is possible, but it is unlikely.

Even more unlikely (though theoretically possible) is a situation in which we realise that, at some time in the past, the silliness of a previous action had relevance to the later past time :shock:.

We are entering the area of: "Is it possible ever to say this?" The answer to that question must be "yes", but most learners will never encounter such situations.