Since after
My father had a minor problem with his Comcast email a couple of days ago(it said he had 2305 new messages, with 0 unread, and yet there was nothing at all in any folder...). The tech we chatted with was quite competent, and she fixed the problem, but it soon became clear that English was probably not her first language. She had some common, classic, issues, and one that I haven't noticed before. Here's a sentence showing both:
Would it be okay to reset your password cause this has been a common issue to us since after we are doing the upgrade of Comcast email system.Unfortunately for her, you can't combine "since" and "after" the way you can "since" and "before". You can, of course, if it's since = because, but then the syntax is different and a comma is required, e.g., "Since, after we upgraded, this has been an issue... I have had to deal with it often". But this "since" and "after" mean the same thing.
Also, of course, English (if I may be anthropomorphic for a moment) doesn't much like the progressive in these constructions, though many ESL/EFL speakers overuse the progressive. It's a tricky point, when to use simple present and when to use the progressive, especially as simple present rarely refers to present time.
Labels: language
4 Comments:
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At 10:46 AM, January 05, 2009
Wishydig had this to say...
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At 4:25 PM, January 05, 2009
Barry Leiba had this to say...
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At 6:11 PM, January 05, 2009
Anonymous had this to say...
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At 11:38 PM, January 05, 2009
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->just last evening i was online with a comcast service tech and she kept addressing me obsequiously as "michael, sir."
i hardly ever get that here.
Yeh, very tricky. "Right now, we are doing the upgrade." But, "Yesterday, we did [not 'were doing'] the upgrade." Oh, except, "Yesterday, when [or 'while'] we were doing [not 'did'] the upgrade, we had a problem and had to stop." And also, "Yesterday, when [or 'after'] we did [not 'were doing'] the upgrade, it caused a problem that made everyone's mail disappear."
To be fair to the call-center tech, most native English speakers don't get them all right all the time (though the particular mistake she made would not usually been doing by a native speaker).
I'd say that the "this has been a common issue to us" part brands her as well.
I think you can combine since and after, though not quite in this way. I can say, for example, "We've had this problem since after the upgrade," in which case I mean that the problem started shortly after the upgrade, and has continued since. But in that case, since and after are contributing two separate things to the meaning, whereas it sounds as if the tech you talked to just meant "since we did the upgrade."
q-pheevr - I agree. I hadn't thought of your example, but I think it works.
Barry - oh, my, yes. I'm sure her English is much more spontaneously fluent than my Russian, for instance!
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