10 ms·
At the risk of being a terrible off topic HN commenter, > He's taught > He's explained > He's taught I'm not sure if it's technically correct (or incorrect)
by madeofpalk 5y ago
At the risk of being a terrible off topic HN commenter,
> He's taught
> He's explained
> He's taught
I'm not sure if it's technically correct (or incorrect) grammar, but I (native English speaker) found these constructs to be really difficult to parse. I wasn't sure whether it was a contraction of "he is" or "he has" as both made sense (though the second point later has context that points to "he has").
I'm not bothered, and I hope no offence is taken by this, I just thought it was mildly fascinating. I don't think I often see that "He's" contraction in English.
- School-Cotton 5y agoIndeed it’s ambiguous in isolation, but knowing that the subject is a teacher interacting with students makes it clear that the contracted word is “has”, not “is”.
- mikewarot 5y agoThat's a fair point, and I've cleaned up my comment to reflect your observations. I just reduced "He's" (short for He has) to "He", as the "has" wasn't really necessary.
- tsm 5y agoI am also a native English speaker (American; living in the UK) and the GP's use of "He's" seemed absolutely fine to me. Not trying to discount your opinion, just adding another data point.