Dear Mr. Firsten:

I teach English in Upshur County, West Virginia. In these parts, it’s very common for people to say things like I’m waiting on you and The dog just drug our braided rug outside instead of I’m waiting for you and The dog just dragged our braided rug outside. I don’t accept those usages. Am I right in not accepting them even though they’re commonly used? Please advise.

Confused
Buckhannon, West Virginia USA

Dear Confused:

Although the standard meaning of wait on is “serve” or “care for” while wait for is synonymous with “await,” it’s now considered an acceptable variation to use wait on instead of wait for. Many people, however, still consider this use of wait on to be colloquial or informal. I would tell your students that using wait on is okay, but that they should use wait for as a more formal or standard usage.
As for drug being the past tense of drag, that’s a different story. The verb drag is regular, so its past tense is dragged. Even though there are people in the Midwestern and Southern areas of the United States who use drug as the past tense and even past participle, it isn’t considered an acceptable variation at this point in time and is still considered substandard. But who knows? There may come a time when it becomes an acceptable variation or nonstandard—only that time hasn’t arrived yet.

And while we’re on the subject, Confused, another verb that people are mistaken about is bite. Many consider that the only acceptable past participle for this verb is bitten, but the truth is that bit is considered an acceptable variation. That may come as a surprise to some, but saying I was bit actually works just as well as I was bitten.

Thanks for sending in those interesting usages, Confused. I hope you won’t be confused anymore!
_______

Dear Richard,

I teach a high-intermediate EFL grammar class. Recently two sentences came under my scrutiny, and I have to admit that they made me somewhat insecure about my knowledge of grammar. Please let me know if both of these sentences are all right. My intuition tells me that they are, but the first sentence, which uses the present perfect twice, seems to go against how I teach the present perfect.

• It’s been years since we’ve eaten Korean food.
• It’s been years since we ate Korean food.

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this issue.

Mary Wodnicki
Warsaw, Poland

Dear Mary,

Your intuition is correct; both sentences are fine, although their meanings are different. There’s nothing wrong with using the present perfect twice in one sentence. This occurs when the verb in question, e.g., eat, is an action that can happen again and again or can happen only once.

If the present perfect is used (we’ve eaten), the speaker probably means that they ate Korean food on several occasions and/or may do so again at some point in the future.

If the simple past is used (we ate), the speaker is referring to one specific event in the past, one time when they ate Korean food, and there’s no implication that this will happen again. The long and short of it is that both the present perfect and simple past can be used when an action can logically be repeated or only happen once.

But let’s take a look at these two sentences:

1. It’s been 25 years since they’ve left their homeland.
2. It’s been 25 years since they left their homeland.

Of these two sentences, only no. 2 is correct. The reason is that this kind of action, leaving one’s homeland or emigrating, is not something that can either take place many times or only once. This kind of action can only happen once for all intents and purposes, so it’s necessary to employ the simple past for such an action.

I hope I’ve shed some light on this issue for you, Mary. Thanks for sending in this very interesting question.
_______

Dear Richard,

Without getting into it, I’d just like to present you with this two-line dialogue and ask you if you think it’s okay. That’s all I’m going to say about it.

A: Would you mind giving me a hand moving this steamer trunk? It’s pretty heavy.
B: Sure. Where do you want to put it?

Sorry if my request sounds a little curt. I just want to get your reaction without saying anything more. Thanks for taking my question.

Gil Robles
Dallas, Texas USA

Dear Gil,

I bet I’ve figured out exactly why you sent this to me. It’s got to do with Speaker B’s response, “Sure.” This is something I, too, have noticed about how people respond to a request that begins with Do you mind …? or Would you mind …?
The proper reply should be in the negative even though the meaning is affirmative, something that ESOL students find very peculiar until they understand what the verb mind means in this context. Mind means “object to” in this idea, so Speaker A is really asking, “Would you object to giving me a hand moving this steamer trunk?” If Speaker B is willing to help out, he should say something like, “No” or “Not at all.” In other words, he’s saying “No, I don’t object to giving you a hand.”

And that’s what’s so odd about saying something like Sure. The speaker is really saying, “Sure (I object to helping you),” but people who respond to Would you mind …? by saying things like Sure don’t realize the true meaning of the verb mind in this context. They consider it to be synonymous with a request like Can you …? or Could you …? in which case it would be appropriate to say Sure if the person is willing to help.

It seems that over the past couple of decades, the true meaning of Do/Would you mind …? has gotten muddied, and only time will tell if responding to such a phrase in the affirmative becomes acceptable. I, for one, find it very strange, knowing as I do what mind really means in this context.

Thanks for bringing up this topic, Gil. It’s another one of those bugaboos of the language that can drive some people nuts!
_______

Now let’s get to the Brain Teaser from my last column. The question was: Which choice in bold is correct in the following sentence?
Send a memo about the upcoming budget meeting to whoever/whomever is working on the project.

The first correct response was sent in by Enid Cocke of Manhattan, Kansas USA.

Thank you for fashioning a question about an issue that I wish more speakers of English understood. They feel the urge to use whom after the preposition when they should be looking at the role the pronoun is playing in its own clause. Thus, the wording should be to whoever [subject] is working on the project. In informal spoken English, we have come to accept who as an object in questions such as Who did you meet? or Who is the call for? but if the preposition is next to the pronoun we know to use whom as in To whom am I speaking? or For whom the bell tolls. This instinct leads us to make the error in question.

Absolutely correct, Enid! Years ago I was given an easy way to know whether we need to use the subject form of these pronouns (who, whoever) or the object form (whom, whomever) in a formal statement: If a verb follows the pronoun in question, use the subject form (You can choose whoever seems the most qualified). If what follows the pronoun in question isn’t a verb, use the object form (You can choose whomever you think is the most qualified). This easy way of deciding on the subject or object form is foolproof, I believe.

Thanks for a concise explanation, Enid. I’m glad you liked my choice of “Brain Teaser” for the last column.