This thread has made me think that I must have had a "progressive" education. I've never heard of almost all the rules mentioned. The latest gap in my grammer is Paul D's "Sequence of Tenses." I've no idea what that is.

I find his example hard to follow. He wrote:

>in The Future Tense conditionals. In other words, at my school, it would >be >equal to a crime to utter a phrase like 'If I will do this, you will do >that.' or 'when I will arrive, greet me.' - 'If I do this...' and 'When I >have arrived...' would have to be used instead. In other words, the >conditional part would have to be used in the Present Tense.

He suggests that the rule is obsolete. However, his examples following the rule: 'If I do this...' instead of 'If I will do this' and 'When I have arrived...' instead of 'when I will arrive' are in fact what I would expect to hear. What rule it violates I don't know, but 'when I will arrive' sounds all wrong. So, in fact, does the other.

So, just out of curiousity, could I ask you to state the "Sequence of Tenses" rule?

Jonathan Goldberg Missouri Alcoholism Research Center Dept. of Psychiatry Washington University School of Medicine 40 N. Kingshighway, Suite One St. Louis, MO 63108 314-286-2212