A concept of time

Larza wrote:
<<But as I have explained to you above, the fact that the vote was in the future has nothing to do with my main argument. The vote is not the subject of a verb; so there is no future action.>>

My reply:
What kind of an argument is that? The reason why I pasted the news here is about the future time (Tuesday) and future action (vote).

The weakness is obvious: Simple Past is used to report future things.

If you could not see the weakness, it is your problem. Why must I follow your blind argument, and see no weakness?

Some argument!!

<<For the last time: the dealine and the vote WILL BE Tuesday as you say, but the deadline and the vote WERE NOT subjects of verbs. The subject of the sentence was Parliament, and the past-tense verb described a state (the state of dueness, as I have noted above) that Parliament was in *in the past*.>>

My reply:
For the second time, if the sentence is cut out and isolated, we have to use Simple Present:

====================
Monday June 26, 2:07 PM
Taiwan wraps up debate before vote on president's fate

TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's parliament IS due to wrap up debate ahead of a vote on Tuesday to decide the fate of embattled President Chen Shui-bian over a string of corruption scandals that have tarnished his government's image.
====================

-- The subject of the sentence IS Parliament.

-- and the past-tense verb SHOULD HAVE BEEN present-verb.

Lazar wrote:
<<Sorry to disappoint you, but I remain completely unconfused. I see nothing odd, perplexing, or abnormal about how the simple past is employed in newspapers.>>

My reply:
But you see "the deadline has already passed". And the truth is, the deadline is not passed at all. It is not a disappointment, but is an enjoyment for the reporter. He sees one more victim.

Lazar wrote:
<<I'm not making a fool of anyone.>>

My reply:
If I want to post the vote Tuesday, and you tell me "the deadline has already passed", you are making a fool of me.

I certainly will not go to post on Tuesday, thanks to your tips.

<<Some argument!!>>

I've provided you with all the argument you need. I could repeat (for the umpteenth time) my argument that the sentence in question *is not* in future time, and that the simple past *cannot* be used to relate future action, but it would be absolutely pointless. You would just keep repeating your own argument and posting more newspaper articles. This thread is going nowhere, and I am not going to perpetuate it any longer. Goodbye.

Lazar wrote:
<<I'm a native speaker of English and I can read newspapers just fine. Your implication is that I'm such a dunce that I can't even understand a simple newspaper article, and that is an insult.>>

My reply:
For the last time, has the deadline for the vote passed or not?

====================
Monday June 26, 2:07 PM
Taiwan wraps up debate before vote on president's fate

TAIPEI (AFP) - Taiwan's parliament was due to wrap up debate ahead of a vote on Tuesday to decide the fate of embattled President Chen Shui-bian over a string of corruption scandals that have tarnished his government's image.
====================

If yes, you are making a fool of me, and that is an insult, too.

An insult for an insult, what's wrong?

Actually, it is a sheer discussion, and you have exaggerated it. It is not an insult.

You should have said: the fact that I cannot explain the tense doesn't mean I cannot read the newspapers.

<<For the last time, has the deadline for the vote passed or not?>>

The newspaper is ambiguous as to whether the deadline is Monday or Tuesday, but you told me that it was Tuesday, and I have acknowledged that.

<<the fact that I cannot explain the tense doesn't mean I cannot read the newspapers.>>

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Now I mean it, I am not going to argue this point anymore.

Lazar wrote:
<<This thread is going nowhere...>>

My reply:
I have proven actions in Simple Past do not always mean actions in the past. This is an achievement.

You have found out a new use for Simple Past, and this is also an achievement.

It is unfortunate we can't even define "time", and this is going nowhere.

English claims to have tense to express time. However, English cannot even define past time, present time, or future time. But we learners have already had to explain Simple Past, Simple Present, and Future Tense.

How far will we want to go?

Thank you for your time. You are a good teacher to me.

<<The newspaper is ambiguous as to whether the deadline is Monday or Tuesday...>>

My reply:
Ambiguous! Did you say I have no proofs that English learners don't even know how to read newspapers? Well, I may have exaggerated, after all.

Lazar wrote:
<<The newspaper is ambiguous as to whether the deadline is Monday or Tuesday...>>

My reply:
Ambiguous! I agree. Many native speakers have told me that.

-- By looking at the tense of the news, I don't know whether the oil-fire has stopped or not. It is ambiguous.

-- If I had just happened to read that article, and then someone had asked me, "Are the firefighters still using foam?" or "Is the blaze still drifting over France and heading toward Spain?", my honest reply as a native speaker of English would have been "I don't know", because that article is only describing what happened in the past.

I told them:
Ambiguous? But the news has already used Simple Past!! Therefore, obviously, Simple Past is the most ambiguous tense ever existed. But why do reporters use it most often?

The second most ambiguous tense is Present Perfect.

In 1980s, there was no Internet -- or I should say, I didn't hear of Internet. As I in eagerness asked about Present Perfect tense in letters to some universities overseas, they posted to me a free issue of ELT (English Language Teaching) Journal, which was published in October 1984 by Oxford University Press in association with The British Council.

In the Journal Tregidgo had posted his rather well-known yet startling comment: "How far have we got with the present perfect?" He expresses his doubles and dissatisfactions over both conventional and contemporary methods in explaining the tense. He concludes: "Meanwhile, one thing seems to me to be pretty clear. Whatever the grammarians may say about it, the problem of the English present perfect remains very much alive and kicking!"

Present Perfect has given too much stress to students, so teachers have to admit they even don't know how to explain the tense.

-----------------
Another scholar on the web said:
"Several years ago I received a call from a friend. She was hoping for a place on a TEFL Certificate course, and she had a problem. 'Help me' she said. 'I can't get my head round the present perfect.' Easy, I thought. I was wrong..."
== http://www.developingteachers.com/articles_tchtraining/pp1_sarn.htm

Sarn has since turned a critic against Present Perfect, the big trouble.

Future Tense has the least trouble, because learners don't even know if there is Future Tense or not.

Finally, the only one tense not ambiguous is Simple Present. It expresses habit, so its use is clear -- as long as we forgot the past habits.

What a mess in English tense, all because we don't even know how to define TIME: past, present, and future!!

That is to say, tenses are build on the knowledge we don't even know.

So, if this thread is going nowhere, it is because tense is used to express time, whose definitions are out of our reach.

If you want to go far, start a thread of your own, and talk with a foreign young student learning English.

Lazar did write this:
<<The simple past can be used in newspaper articles (as it has been used here) to describe a continuous action that has gone on during the current day and may/will continue into the future (such as the action of <being due to do something>), but the simple past can never be used for actual future action.>>

My reply:
There is no meaning of "past" in the following Lazar's description:

...to describe a continuous action that has gone on during the current day and may/will continue into the future (such as the action of <being due to do something>)...

Therefore, Lazar has clearly understand that Simple Past is not used to describe action in the past. This exact definition is for Present Progressive. As I have pointed out, this is the second use of Simple Past. However, it will confuse those who really look into the tense.

This is why I said:
Then without tenses, a native speaker will understand newspapers more perfectly.
What is the use of tenses anyway? What do you think you can't do without tenses?