5 ms·

Doesn’t adding the ‘d change it from past tense to passive voice past tense?

by ses1984 3y ago

Lio 3y ago
I honestly don't know but to me it sounds like present tense. I'd be interested to know though. It just reads as ...wrong to me. I guess it might be an English dialect thing.
- slhck 3y ago
  I'd say: "She has said goodbye too many times before." Because it still has relevance for the present, it should be present perfect. Unless if course it's about finally quitting, then the past tense makes sense.
  - Lio 3y ago
    > "She has said goodbye too many times before." Yeah, that sounds OK. Probably better than my original suggestion. Or even the contracted "She's said goodbye too many times before".
    - jameshart 3y ago
      I always heard the lyric as ‘she’s said goodbye..’, which both scans and makes more grammatical sense. Also matches the tense of the previous line - ‘this love has taken its toll..’
thfuran 3y ago
No, that's past perfect but not passive. Passive voice is where the subject is not the actor. "Mistakes were made" is a classic example. Mistakes are the subject but did not do the verb. Someone made mistakes.
whimsicalism 3y ago
Not sure, but the phrasing without 'd reads as off to me, a native english speaker.
jraph 3y ago
Since several people are not sure about this, I figured an easily skipped little grammar point can't hurt too much. Passive past would be something like "Goodbye had been said too many times before [by her]" In active voice, the subject does something to the object. In passive voice, the object is affected [by the subject]. (I wanted to write "is done something to" instead of "affected", but that feels ugly - the issue with affected is that it is also an adjective; I really mean the past participle here) The object becomes the subject, and vice versa. The be auxiliary needs to be present. If be is not here, it ain't passive. If be is here… be can be used in active voice so you can't know for sure, but if there's a "by ..." clause, or if adding one feels natural, that a good hint. The intent of the passive voice is usually to focus on the object or the action, of de-emphasis the subject, of even to drop it because it's not important, it's redundant or even to create some suspense regarding who performed the action. (English is a second language to me, though what I wrote completely applies to my first language too)

Doesn’t adding the ‘d change it from past tense to passive voice past tense?

Lio 3y ago

I honestly don't know but to me it sounds like present tense. I'd be interested to know though. It just reads as ...wrong to me. I guess it might be an English dialect thing.

slhck 3y ago
I'd say: "She has said goodbye too many times before." Because it still has relevance for the present, it should be present perfect. Unless if course it's about finally quitting, then the past tense makes sense.
- Lio 3y ago
  > "She has said goodbye too many times before." Yeah, that sounds OK. Probably better than my original suggestion. Or even the contracted "She's said goodbye too many times before".
  - jameshart 3y ago
    I always heard the lyric as ‘she’s said goodbye..’, which both scans and makes more grammatical sense. Also matches the tense of the previous line - ‘this love has taken its toll..’

thfuran 3y ago

No, that's past perfect but not passive. Passive voice is where the subject is not the actor. "Mistakes were made" is a classic example. Mistakes are the subject but did not do the verb. Someone made mistakes.

whimsicalism 3y ago

Not sure, but the phrasing without 'd reads as off to me, a native english speaker.

jraph 3y ago

Since several people are not sure about this, I figured an easily skipped little grammar point can't hurt too much. Passive past would be something like "Goodbye had been said too many times before [by her]" In active voice, the subject does something to the object. In passive voice, the object is affected [by the subject]. (I wanted to write "is done something to" instead of "affected", but that feels ugly - the issue with affected is that it is also an adjective; I really mean the past participle here) The object becomes the subject, and vice versa. The be auxiliary needs to be present. If be is not here, it ain't passive. If be is here… be can be used in active voice so you can't know for sure, but if there's a "by ..." clause, or if adding one feels natural, that a good hint. The intent of the passive voice is usually to focus on the object or the action, of de-emphasis the subject, of even to drop it because it's not important, it's redundant or even to create some suspense regarding who performed the action. (English is a second language to me, though what I wrote completely applies to my first language too)