<p>a grammar question about tense confused me when i was reviewing writing MCs.
such a sentence:
He mentioned in his speech the point that the invention of internet has/had transformed our world drastically.</p>
<p>should we use has or had?</p>
<p>I think it is had.</p>
<p>but the invention of internet continues to transform our world now; isn’t it a “truth”</p>
<p>I’m going to leave this off to Silverturtle or Crazybandit to explain this one.</p>
<p>But I think the answer should be “has” transformed our world drastically because if you replace “invention of internet” with an “it”, it would sound more sense to say “It has transformed our world drastically” than to say “It had transformed our world drastically.”</p>
<p>He mentioned in his speech the point that the invention of internet has transformed our world drastically.</p>
<p>Not he mentioned in his speech the point that the invention of internet had transformed our world drastically.</p>
<p>The thing is that it has taken up to the place today. We’re now in the era of the sentence mentioned. It represents an ongoing event that carried on until today. If it were past tense “had”, then it would’ve stopped. But then we’re changed by the invention of the internet.</p>
<p>usually, you wanna keep a sentence’s verb tense uniform throughout. The sentences started with…mentioned… so it should be followed by “had”</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that both work.</p>
<p>He mentioned in his speech the point that the invention of internet has/had transformed our world drastically.</p>
<p>“has” is correct. The invention of the internet transformed our world in the past and CONTINUES to do so.
“Had” doesn’t really make any sense. The invention of the internet transformed the world drastically before the speech was made? That doesn’t make any sense.</p>
<p>fresh is right. i was wrong.</p>
<p>I would use has.It’s a fact.</p>
<p>Fresh101 makes a good point, but in this case there’s another rule at work. OP, the answer given by your problem set is “had,” isn’t it?</p>
<p>In this case, although the invention of the internet continues to transform our world, the speaker can’t be referring to this continued transformation because he made this speech in the past. Logically, he could only be referring to the transformation that had already taken place BEFORE his speech was made. So we need the past of the past, or “past perfect,” tense: “had transformed.” </p>
<p>Another way to think of this problem has to do with something called indirect statements. Take a look at the following two sentences:</p>
<ol>
<li>Mike told me, “My car is in the shop.”</li>
<li>Mike told me his car was in the shop. </li>
</ol>
<p>In the second case, the speaker hasn’t quoted Mike directly. Instead, he’s used an “indirect statement” to tell us what Mike said. When you use an indirect statement like this, you might shift the verb tenses in the indirect statement to reflect the tense of the main verb. In this case, since the main verb is in the past tense, we can change the verb in the indirect statement from “is” to “was” to reflect the past tense of the rest of the sentence. Here, the speaker’s “point” is an example of such an indirect statement, so we might shift the tenses to reflect the verb tense of the statement as a whole. </p>
<p>For more information on this kind of question, you might check out the following page on indirect speech:</p>
<p>[Lesson</a> 5- Indirect Speech | myenglishgrammar.com | Tesl, Toefl, Esl, Online-english-course,](<a href=“http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/lesson-5-indirect-speech.html]Lesson”>http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/lesson-5-indirect-speech.html)</p>
<p>I disagree with loft629. Consider the following:</p>
<p>“He told me that his name was Bob” or “He told me that his name is Bob.”</p>
<p>“He said that there were fifty states” or “He said that there are fifty states.” </p>
<p>The latter form in both cases is correct.</p>
<p>When the statement conveys a general truth, the present tense should be used for the idea being conveyed even if the statement was made in the past. The fact that the Internet has transformed our world is a general truth.</p>
<p>Indeed, [English</a> Grammar - direct speech - quoted speech and indirect speech - reported speech - Learn English](<a href=“http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/reportedspeech.htm]English”>English Grammar - direct speech - quoted speech and indirect speech - reported speech - Learn English) supports my position:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Moreover, loft629, the link you provided ([Lesson</a> 5- Indirect Speech | myenglishgrammar.com | Tesl, Toefl, Esl, Online-english-course,](<a href=“http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/lesson-5-indirect-speech.html]Lesson”>http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/english/lesson-5-indirect-speech.html)) counters your position:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re right, Silverturtle, and one of my grammar books also points out that either tense is technically correct here. But if the student is being asked to choose between these two tenses, I still maintain that “had” is the more accepted and conventional usage for the reasons I’ve mentioned. My current copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, for instance, points out that tenses need to be integrated into the new context when authors are being quoted.</p>
<p>Hmmmm. If this is a question from a real SAT, I’m curious what the answer given by the question is. I still suspect it’s “had.” OP, if you have the answer key, you know which answer is considered right by your test: you have explanations for both possibilities, so you’re set either way. :)</p>
<p>I would be surprised if this were from the College Board: both alternatives are grammatical.</p>
<p>Yep, Silverturtle, you and I are agreed on that.</p>
<p>this is not an SAT Q, but here’s a GMAT question, if you’d like to see</p>
<p>Native American burial sites dating back 5,000 years indicate that the residents of Maine at that time [were part of a widespread culture of Algonquian-speaking people].
(A) were part of a widespread culture of Algonquian-speaking people
(B) had been part of a widespread culture of people who were Algonquian-speaking
(C) were people who were part of a widespread culture that was Algonquian-speaking
(D) had been people who were part of a widespread culture that was Algonquian-speaking
(E) were a people which had been part of a widespread, Algonquian-speaking culture</p>
<p>“had been” would be wrong since it indicates that the Native Americans had previously ceased to be part of the widespread culture.</p>
<p>so this kind of Q would not appear in SAT?</p>
<p>Answer is A.</p>
<p>Silvertutle, the website you quoted in another thread [Reported</a> speech - English Grammar](<a href=“http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/reported.htm]Reported”>Reported Speech (Indirect Speech) in English - Summary) actually states:</p>
<p>Note:</p>
<p>In some cases the backshift of tenses is not necessary, e.g. when statements are still true.</p>
<p>Mandy: “The sun rises in the East.”
Mandy said that the sun rose in the East. or
Mandy said that the sun rises in the East.</p>
<p>to me it sounds weird to say ‘Mandy said that the sun rose in the East.’</p>
<p>^ Yes, that supports the idea of their both being correct. I do, however, agree that the present tense for general truths sounds much more intuitive.</p>
<p>The tense should depend on the intention of the original speaker: did she mean to say that the sun rose in the East during a particular time period, or, alternatively, did she mean to say that the sun always rises in the East? The latter is likelier.</p>