I am not a specialist of English grammar, and this has been annoying me for a while: I know 'ago' means 'before the present'. therefore it follows that you can't use it in past-tense writing: thus, sentences like 'long ago, he had seen an extraordinary thing' are incorrect. Right? So what do you use instead if you want to keep the same idea? (ie how can you rewrite the sentence so that it is gramatically correct?)
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I'm not sure I see the problem, as long as you use the past-perfect tense (which you do in your example). Perhaps you should just restructure it so that it runs, "he had seen an extraordinary thing long ago."
Does anyone here think that usage is actually wrong?
Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :
quote:I know 'ago' means 'before the present'. therefore it follows that you can't use it in past-tense writing: thus, sentences like 'long ago, he had seen an extraordinary thing' are incorrect. Right?
Wrong.
"Ago" means "in the past."
So "long ago" means a long time in the past, and it can be relative to the time period of the story.
Posted by Balthasar (Member # 5399) on :
Along with Survivor, I don't see what the problem is. I looked up "ago" in The Careful Writer by Theodore Bernstein. He says that "ago carries the mind back from the present to the past." In other words, when you open a sentence with "Long ago" you're indicating to the reader that you're talking about things that happened in the past.
Within a story, then, "long ago" would indicate a time before the present of your story.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited March 30, 2004).]
Posted by Kolona (Member # 1438) on :
In a similar vein, using the word 'now' often throws me. "Her life now hinged on choosing the right wire." 'Now' is superfluous, yet sometimes in context improves flow or drives home a sudden change of circumstances. Yet it seems at odds with past tense. I find myself removing and reinserting 'nows' and it bugs me.
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 747) on :
In order to answer this question correctly, I'll have to get home and look at my usage dictionary. But my instinct is that "ago" is not correct when using the past perfect tense. For instance:
"I had seen the man two weeks ago." This seems confusing to me. Two weeks ago from the time you're telling the story? Two weeks before?
But "I saw the man two weeks ago" seems fine to me. It's just that when you're using past perfect, it seems double-past, if you know what I mean.
What I use instead of "ago" is "before." "I had seen the man two weeks before."
If anyone knows something that can refute this, I'd be more than willing to hear it. But that's my instinct about "ago."
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I think that "before" works just fine as a substitute for "ago" if you have any concern. I just don't see anything wrong with "ago".
"It had been two weeks ago." This means that at that point in the past, something had been two weeks before that. Is the meaning of that ambiguous?
Pronunciation: &-'gO Function: adjective or adverb Etymology: Middle English agon, ago, from past participle of agon to pass away, from Old English AgAn, from A- (perfective prefix) + gAn to go -- more at ABIDE, GO : earlier than the present time <10 years ago>
Hope that helps
Rux
Posted by Brinestone (Member # 747) on :
Hehe. Yup, I was wrong. Ago is just fine in past perfect. Disregard my last post.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 1512) on :
quote:I know 'ago' means 'before the present'. therefore it follows that you can't use it in past-tense writing: thus, sentences like 'long ago, he had seen an extraordinary thing' are incorrect. Right?
No, because it references the present in the story, not in the narration of the story.