Go Back to Index
Go to Language Miniatures at http://home.bluemarble.net/~langmin/index.html

A Few 'Language Miniatures'

Is Silence Being Golden?

Our English progressive is difficult

There are things about English that the average non-native speakers seem to have trouble with. Mastering the ways we use the construction called the progressive is one of them. Many Americans were born abroad but have lived in this country for years. But even those who speak almost perfect English will occasionally slip and use the progressive in a way that sounds odd to us. We hear things like 'At this moment she works' or 'He is washing the dishes every night '.

If someone were to ask us under what circumstances to use the progressive, most of us would say something like "Well, I say 'I'm writing' when I'm actually doing it as I say that." We know, in other words, when to say 'I'm writing ' and when 'I write '. But the confusions faced by learners of English tell us that it can't be anywhere near that straightforward. Often we do use a progressive to mean that someone is literally right in the act of doing something. 'She is reading in the living room ' means that's where she is and what she's doing at the moment of speaking, where 'She reads in the living room ' just means that's her usual custom. So far so good.

Picture yourself saying 'Well, yesterday I'm walking along the street, see, when this guy comes up to me ...' Aren't you expecting your listener to know you aren't right in the act of walking as you say it? Your word 'yesterday' makes it plain that it has all happened well before your talking about it. Now try saying 'They are putting on a performance next year '. How could you be saying they're in the midst of something that is still months off? Again, something that isn't happening as you say it, but this time off in the future.

'You're looking tired these days'. What are you trying to communicate when you say this to someone? At least it's something going on right now, but do you really mean that it's just at the moment you're saying it? It doesn't seem you're saying that person is 'right in the act of' anything at all, but more that you have an impression 'more or less about this time', now but also 'smeared' over both earlier and later.

Even that isn't all. How do we know that some verbs can't take a progressive at all, even though it seems quite reasonable to say that someone is 'right in the act of' doing something'? You probably won't have much trouble agreeing that 'She's knowing that' or 'You're having to do that sometime today' sound distinctly odd.

If this were a grammar lesson, we would try now to account for how we get all these meanings from one -ing form. It is rather complex, so we would need a few pages. But fortunately this isn't a lecture. Let's try a thumbnail version anyway, and you can see if the above examples fit it. We find ourselves using the progressive when what is described by a given verb is more likely to be the case at some time than at others. This 'more likely' time is most often the moment of speaking, but it might not be. It can perfectly well be some time in the past or future, as we just saw. This also accounts for why we understand immediately that 'looking tired ' goes well beyond the moment of speaking. It explains as well the oddness of 'She is knowing her geography '. If she knows it she knows it, so what about that 'more likely'? It's just that it's not easy to picture times when it could be less likely.

Why does "Silence is Being Golden" sound so odd? Is 'Silence' sometimes not 'Golden'? Even though we may think of occasional instances where it isn't, that well-known saying puts it confidently in the form of a universal truth.

The point of all this, though, was not so much to explain how we use the progressive, but simply to say that we're all unconsciously aware of the same subtleties of usage, without ever having given much thought to how complex our knowledge really is. To answer the question we started with, if we're looking for an example of something that is almost impossible to learn at a later age, one of our most promising candidates is our familiar progressive.

All essays Copyright © 1998-2004 by William Z. Shetter
Go to Language Miniatures at http://home.bluemarble.net/~langmin/index.html

Got a question? Send it to me -- kmdavis@erols.com and I'll answer it.