For a glimpse of how social media like Twitter are shaping the way young people today are learning their English, I’d like to share a conversation I had several years back with Forum member English Maiden.
She posted this message to the Forum using her cellular phone:
“Hello again, sir!
“Because I have become more and more active on Twitter, I have also become more and more conscious about my English, grammar and all. One thing I find extremely difficult to grasp is which tense of the succeeding verb to use after the phrase ‘I didn’t know/think...’ Whenever I start a sentence with that phrase, I always fumble. For instance, if I’ve just learned that my friend enjoys watching movies, which of the following responses would be correct: ‘I didn’t know you LIKED movies a lot’ or ‘I didn’t know you LIKE movies a lot’?
“And suppose I suddenly learned that a friend of mine has been working as a model for years now, which would be the right statement to make: ‘Oh, I didn’t know you WERE a model/HAD BEEN modeling’ or ‘Oh, I didn’t know you ARE a model/HAVE BEEN modeling’?
“Are there hard-and-fast rules for this? I’m looking forward to your answers as always. Have a great day!”
I replied to English Maiden:The tense of the verb in the relative clause will depend on precisely when you made the declaration. If you did it sometime in the past and you are recalling it in some sort of narrative, use the past tense for that verb: “I didn’t know you
liked movies a lot.” This is because for all you know, that friend of yours may no longer like movies a lot, so the action of the verb “liked” no longer subsists. On the other hand, if you are making the declaration right now—the evolving present—use the present tense for that verb in the relative clause: “I didn’t know you
like movies a lot.”
For the modeling scenario that you described, use the present perfect progressive for the verb in the relative clause: “Oh, I didn’t know you
have been modeling.” This is because the action in the relative clause continues until the present time—the sense evoked by the present perfect progressive.
This is the rule of thumb you can use for dealing with declarations prefaced by “I didn’t know/think you…” phrases. You should get the hang of it in no time at all.
TYPICAL TWEETER MESSAGES BACK WHEN THE LIMIT WAS 140 CHARACTERS
By the way, I found it rather odd when you said that because you have become more and more active on Twitter, you have also become more and more conscious about your English, grammar and all. I didn’t know that Twitter could be that effective in making someone more and more conscious about correct English grammar and usage. You see, most of the Twitter messages I’ve been coming across are in oddly abbreviated, often fractured English—largely because of the punitive limit for the length of each Tweet*, of course, but I think also because sometimes the Tweeter’s grasp of English isn’t that great to begin with.
So, my feeling is that Twitter may be great for encouraging brevity in expressing one’s ideas (based on my own experience with it by far), but as to promoting good English and grammar usage, I really wonder…
At any rate, English Maiden, I certainly think that for polishing your English and your powers of expression, you’d be much better off having a face-to-face or phone conversation with a friend or reading a good English-language book—or perhaps dashing off a substantial posting here in the Forum where your powers of expression in English can really shine. Try this more often and compare it with your Twitter experience in honing your written English.
This essay first appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the November 26, 2011 issue of The Manila Times
, ©2011 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.---------------
*At the time of this writing, Twitter had a 140-character limit for tweets. This limit was expanded to 280 characters in November 2017. A Twitter product manager wrote then about the test group on which this expanded character limit was tested: “We saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they tweeted more easily and more often. But importantly, people tweeted below 140 most of the time and the brevity of Twitter remained.” (See the Verge.com article “Twitter says people are tweeting more, but not longer, with 280-character limit” by Jacob Kastrenakes in the website’s February 8, 2018 issue.)
