Re: Past or present

Posted by Platypus on May 20, 2004

In Reply to: Re: Past or present posted by Miri Barak on May 20, 2004

: : : I cannot decide whether this sentence is in the past or present tense?
: : : I'll appreciate your help.

: : : "we've had plenty of people take a look at this dog at this point".

: : : Thank you

: : It's in the past. "...at this point" is unnecessary and confusing.

: Thank you so much.

I beg to differ, but I think this rather sloppy sentence is in both past and present, specifically the "present perfect continuous" or "pluberfect continuous". The seemingly superfluous "at this point" suggests the speaker/writer used the phrase to repair the damage done by not using the gerund, "-ing", with either "take" (taking) or "look" (looking, sans take). The thrust of the sentence is: people have been looking at the dog. have+been+***-ing being the standard form of the past-perfect-continuous.
The point to all this verbage is to imply that not only have folks been looking at the dog, but they will continue to do so until the dog is sold or wins the prize, etc. Moreover, the sentence actually in the past, present, and future. And sub-par grammatically.