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Wrong tense and wrong subject?



 
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ESL Forums | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
Strange construction? | Expression: Old cheese
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Wrong tense and wrong subject? #1 (permalink) Tue Apr 17, 2007 18:33 pm   Wrong tense and wrong subject?		  
Hi,

What do you make of this paragraph:

He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

Shouldn't it read "We could only make decisions based on the information we had on the time of the event. We didn't have hours to reflect on it".

Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Torsten
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comment #2 (permalink) Tue Apr 17, 2007 19:38 pm   comment		  
Hi Torsten,

Quote:
He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

You have asked for comments on this. I would in all honesty just make one change - on the time to at the time

I can argue the use of the tenses as follows: The speaker says that now we can decide only on the basis of what we knew at the time. In other words we can't use, for some reason, the benefit of hindsight. He then continues by saying we don't have time now to delay.

Just a thought.

A
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Strange construction? | Expression: Old cheese
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