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Isn't "am going" a "present tense". "Going" is a special case of subject+be+gerund. In modern colloquial English, anyone who says "I am going to X," means, ba
by colanderman 14y ago
Isn't "am going" a "present tense".
"Going" is a special case of subject+be+gerund. In modern colloquial English, anyone who says "I am going to X," means, based on context, either "I will be going to X soon" (i.e. a committed future action), or "I attend classes at X". If you want to talk about a concurrent action, you have to say either "I am going to X right now," or "I am on my way to X."
Again, this doesn't apply (AFAIK) to any other gerund. e.g. if you say "I am walking to X," it means you are currently in the act of walking to X.
English is weird.
- Gormo 14y agoI think that "going" in this sense is originated as an abstract metaphor; its literal present-tense meaning asserts that one is moving in the direction of some destination, and will arrive at that destination in the future. If you say "I am going to Los Angeles", it literally means that you're on your way to Los Angeles, and will arrive in Los Angeles at some point in the future; so if the destination is a verb, you're saying that you're metaphorically "moving in the direction" of performing whatever action the verb describes, and that the action will therefore be performed in the future. It seems that this meaning generally eclipses the literal meaning, so we use different verbs to more precisely describe the act of literally moving toward a physical destination, e.g. "traveling".