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After its reputation went up in flames, Humane warns users its charging case may too (www.engadget.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Gotta say, this is “headline of the year” contender material

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Only if it weren’t for the sloppy verb tense disagreement. It should read:

After its reputation goes up in flames, Humane warns users its charging case may, too

5th graders learn how to conjugate irregular verbs. Engadget editors should know better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Can you help me understand why? Both seem right to me, and GPT is insistent that the original is right

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

“Goes” and “may” are both present participle, whereas “went” is simple past participle. To match “went”, one would have to use the word “might” (simple past participle of “may”). The choice of the word “might”, however, is inappropriate in this context because the headline is referring to something that would happen in the future (and is less than certain to), and the word “might” typically refers to things that could have happened in the past. “May” refers to things that are likely to happen in the present or future, making it the appropriate word choice.

Edit: the verb tenses should match because the first clause is a dependent clause which depends on the second clause which defines the subject “Humane”. If the first clause had been an independent clause, then it would be OK for the verb tenses not to match. Bad style, but not grammatically incorrect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Thank you so much! That makes sense, and since you explained why, I can look up participles myself :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Isn't it past imperfect though? So it would be goed

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

“Goes” and “may” are both present participle, whereas “went” is simple past participle. To match “went”, one would have to use the word “might” (simple past participle of “may”). The choice of the word “might”, however, is inappropriate in this context because it is referring to something that would happen in the future (and is less than certain to), and the word “might” typically refers to things that could have happened in the past. “May” refers to things that are likely to happen in the present or future, making it the appropriate word choice.

Also, there is no imperfect tense in English. That would be the continuous tense.