Future past?
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David Gelles, "Ben Smith Is Leaving The Times for a Global News Start-Up", NYT 1/4/2022 [emphasis added]:
Ben Smith, the media columnist for The New York Times, is leaving the media outlet to start a new global news organization with Justin Smith, who is stepping down as chief executive of Bloomberg Media.
Ben Smith said in an interview that they planned to build a global newsroom that broke news and experimented with new formats of storytelling. He did not provide details on what beats or regions would be covered, how much money they planned to raise or when the new organization would start.
D.D., who sent in the link, asked:
Is there a term for this use of past tense to describe something in the future?
Um, "a mistake"?
The sentence starts with the matrix verb said, which makes it appropriate to use planned, since the planning was true at the (past) time of the saying. (Or we could attribute this to the backshifting effect of "sequence of tenses".) But to continue with broke and experimented seems wrong to me. The subsequently-used pattern of would be covered and would start seems more appropriate: "…said in an interview that they planned to build a global newsroom that would break news and experiment with new formats…".
The "sequence of tenses" backshifting might also turn future into present: "said in an interview that they planned to build a global newsroom that breaks news and experiments with new formats". Backshifting future into past is a step too far, in my opinion.
But as Geoff Pullum explained a dozen years ago ("It's time", 4/14/2009),
[T]he preterite tense in English is often used for what is called "modal remoteness" — it takes us away from claiming something about the actual world.
So maybe the writer (or editor) felt that the modal remoteness of the Smiths' plans justified the use of the preterite?
The obligatory screenshot:
Jerry Packard said,
January 4, 2022 @ 3:02 pm
It seems to me that the writer does seem to be using the past for 'broke' and 'experimented' simply for consistency — to mechanically follow the past use of 'said' and 'planned' in the same sentence.
That said, to me the use of 'broke' and 'experimented' does evoke irrealis, as would the use of 'will break' and 'will experiment' or 'would break' and 'would experiment', evoking the modal remoteness of the Smiths' plans. THAT said, the use of 'breaks' and 'experiments' in that context does seem more felicitous to me.
dfan said,
January 4, 2022 @ 3:16 pm
I consider myself pretty sensitive to grammatical infelicities and this did not strike me as unusual or misleading in the slightest. I guess I can see the theoretical issue, but I wouldn't put an asterisk in front of it in a linguistics textbook.
[(myl) I probably wouldn't have noticed it without the pointer from D.D. — but then I'm The World's Worst Proofreader™.]
J.W. Brewer said,
January 4, 2022 @ 4:55 pm
If it said "had planned to build a global newsroom that broke" etc., the tenses would be nicely consistent but it would carry an implicature that the plan had failed or been abandoned, which seems perhaps a step beyond modal remoteness into something else.
Bob Ladd said,
January 4, 2022 @ 6:02 pm
I agree with dfan (and with Jerry Packard's assessment of the author's intentions). This just strikes me as standard sequence-of-tenses usage. If I had written the sentence, I probably would have edited those tenses on a careful rereading, but perhaps not: breaks news and experiments with new formats don't really sound much better, unless you also get rid of planned at the beginning of the clause. That suggests that this really is just a case of sequence-of-tenses that just got a bit too long.
S Frankel said,
January 4, 2022 @ 6:06 pm
I agree with Jerry Packard.
This strongly resembles the classical (Latin, whatever) subjunctive. It's describing something that's contrary to reality, in this case, an aspiration.
This is productive in English, I think – the use of a past-tense form for subjunctive meaning. Compare, for example, "If we go to the party…" (simple conditional) with "If we went to the party…" (past tense even though the event is in the future, to indicate subjunctive meaning, in this case contrary-to-fact. We probably won't go to the party.
Jerry Friedman said,
January 4, 2022 @ 10:50 pm
I strongly prefer MYL's suggestion of "would break" and "would experiment". Past tense is sometimes used for "subjunctive" or "conditional" or "irrealis" or "modal remoteness", but this use of "broke" and "experimented" sounds strange to me. To put it another way, the past tense that works for me here is "would" thought of as the past tense of "will".
(An example of a past tense I amateurishly find interesting is "If we had competent leaders in our organization, the people who reported to them would be competent too.")
John Swindle said,
January 5, 2022 @ 12:37 am
So Americans are divided about this usage. Are any of the commenters from the U.K.? Any difference there?
Picky said,
January 5, 2022 @ 3:07 am
To this U.K. reader it seems a perfectly standard use of reported speech.
“I plan a newsroom that will break news” reports as “he said he planned a newsroom that would break news”.
“I plan a newsroom that breaks news” reports as “he said he planned a newsroom that broke news”.
Peter Grubtal said,
January 5, 2022 @ 3:15 am
John Swindle
this UK (-origin) commenter has a reflex which says in cases like this…"now, now, this may be standard US usage: don't get testy about it!".
In this particular case, if it hadn't been drawn to our attention, I'm don't think it would have impinged on me, although I can't be sure because the question is now hypothetical.
Probably, I would expect "will/would break", or "breaks" even. But media people prefer to make it punchy, and often employ non-standard usage just for that reason.
Simon K said,
January 5, 2022 @ 4:11 am
This UK reader couldn't work out what was supposed to be wrong with the wording until I read this post in detail. It sounds perfectly fine to me, and I agree entirely with Picky's analysis.
Philip Taylor said,
January 5, 2022 @ 5:47 am
And I (also UK) could have written exactly what Simon K has just said.
Francois Lang said,
January 5, 2022 @ 6:50 am
I completely agree with dfan. Reads perfectly fine to me.
While we're at it, let's get myl one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Worst-People-Designs-Proofreader/dp/B091C8Y1K8
Philip Taylor said,
January 5, 2022 @ 7:06 am
OK, I am confused (not unusual) — even tho' I know that there must be a typo. in the text on the sweatshirt, I cannot see it. What is it, please ?
John Swindle said,
January 5, 2022 @ 8:54 am
@Peter Grubtal: Whereas I as an American thought "Now, now, this may be standard UK usage." So that's very helpful. Nor will I speculate on how it would strike the Indian English mind.
@Philip Taylor: Maybe nothing.
languagehat said,
January 5, 2022 @ 8:54 am
I consider myself pretty sensitive to grammatical infelicities and this did not strike me as unusual or misleading in the slightest. I guess I can see the theoretical issue, but I wouldn't put an asterisk in front of it in a linguistics textbook.
I agree with this, and with Picky's "perfectly standard use of reported speech."
[(myl) I probably wouldn't have noticed it without the pointer from D.D. — but then I'm The World's Worst Proofreader™.]
I'm a pretty damn good proofreader (I got paid for doing it for years) and, as I say, it reads fine to me. I think this is a myl thing and not an English thing.
David Marjanović said,
January 5, 2022 @ 9:37 am
What surprises me most is "planned" instead of "were planning". Maybe everything else just follows from that.
I also wondered about interpreting "broke" and "experimented" as subjunctive instead of past – that would almost work in German – but, judging from this thread, it's not how native speakers think about this anymore.
Francois Lang said,
January 5, 2022 @ 9:53 am
@Philip Taylor
There is no typo. I believe "World's Worst" is a category of casual attire that can specify what the wearer claims to be the world's worst at, but I do agree that had there been a typo, e.g., "World's Worst Proofreder", it would have been far better!
Philip Taylor said,
January 5, 2022 @ 10:31 am
How about "Worlds wors’t proofreader" — do you think they'd make a bespoke edition ?!
JJM said,
January 5, 2022 @ 11:11 am
Another excellent example of:
"That's all very well in practice. But how would it work in theory?"
Rachael Churchill said,
January 5, 2022 @ 11:31 am
The example in the OP looks fine to me (UK), and I was coming to make the same comment as Picky explaining it.
Jerry Friedman said,
January 5, 2022 @ 4:46 pm
Picky: “I plan a newsroom that breaks news” reports as “he said he planned a newsroom that broke news”.
Does "We are adopting a new policy that goes into effect tomorrow" report as *"He said they adopted a new policy that went into effect tomorrow"? Or is that an exception?
Julian said,
January 5, 2022 @ 5:15 pm
64yo Australian here
Carrying the backshift into the subordinate clause ('that broke news') strikes me as a bit awkward ('would break…' would be clearer) but not ungrammatical.
Philip Taylor said,
January 5, 2022 @ 5:31 pm
Not an exception, Jerry, a different tense. "We are adopting" "We adopt".
Jerry Friedman said,
January 5, 2022 @ 11:08 pm
Does that make a difference, Philip? That is, would your opinion of the original sentence have been any different if it had contained "they were planning"?
Or how about the reported version of "I know of only one interesting event that occurs tomorrow"?
By the way, "break news" doesn't sound idiomatic to me—I'm only familiar with "break the news", referring to a specific piece of news—but I suppose it's used by journalists.
Jason Merchant said,
January 5, 2022 @ 11:32 pm
I'm with Bob Ladd et multi alii here: this strikes me as perfectly fine, run-of-the-mill sequence of tense in English here, comparable to a standard example like "My grandfather said he met a woman who was pregnant", with its various readings. Add "fifty years ago" after "he" and shift to "is" to see how weird an embedded present would be there (given that the double-access reading is ruled out by human biology).
Still, I agree that replacing "broke" etc. with "would break" would have side-stepped this whole thing. And there's an argument that could be made that the past-(SOT)-shifted form of a futurate present should be "would V", actually.
Picky said,
January 6, 2022 @ 3:12 am
@Jerry Friedman
To my ear the problem with your suggested *sentence is not the verbs “adopted” or “went”, but the word “tomorrow”, which clearly doesn’t work. So the reported speech would use “the following day”.
As some commenters have pointed out, there are occasions when reported speech can lead to confusions. But that’s a matter of style, not of grammar.
Rachael Churchill said,
January 6, 2022 @ 11:07 am
The difference with Jerry Friedman's example is that "breaks news" and "goes into effect tomorrow" are not the same tense, despite using superficially similar syntax. "Breaks news" is the habitual present. "Goes into effect tomorrow" – I'm not sure of the correct term, but it's the thing where English uses a present-tense form to express the future tense. So it would be converted into reported speech as "…that would go into effect the following day" (just as "will go into effect tomorrow" would).
Jerry Friedman said,
January 6, 2022 @ 6:37 pm
Picky: I agree that "tomorrow" is the problem in my example, and that it often backshifts to "the next day". But what if it's the same day? The sentence could start, "I just talked to Smith, and he said…"
Rachael Smith: The present tense in "breaks news" also refers to the future, after this planned news organization gets to work (if it does). You're right, though, that the initial example referred to habitual occurrences in the future and mine with "tomorrow" referred with a single one. Do you see that as a crucial difference?
I should add that I'm not sure "would", the suggestion I liked in the initial sentence, would work in my example. And my example isn't supposed to support my feeling that the initial sentence is wrong. I just thought it was a direction to explore.
Picky said,
January 7, 2022 @ 3:26 am
@Jerry Friedman.
Yes, the same day is awkward, too. But again that is a difficulty with reported speech, and the “reporter” has to find a way round it. It’s a question of style. If it’s the same day, “that day” or some other phrase would be chosen.
Stephen Goranson said,
January 7, 2022 @ 7:03 am
I once wrote about a lama who fled from Tibet that, on the way to India, he was "sheltered and hiding" from pursuers in a hollow tree. An editor did not allow that, saying the verbs must be parallel. Bah.
Rachael Churchill (not Smith) said,
January 7, 2022 @ 7:06 am
I think they are different temporal tenses as well as the habitual/one-off distinction.
"A newsroom that breaks news" – present habitual
"We are planning to build {a newsroom that breaks news}" – future statement looking forward to (what will then be) present habitual
"They planned to build {a newsroom that broke news}" – past-tense reported speech about a future statement that looked forward to a present habitual
Whereas I think that in "We are adopting a new policy that goes into effect tomorrow", "goes into effect tomorrow" is straightforward future tense (using the present-tense form, as mentioned before). The meaning is the same if you re-word it as "{We are adopting a new policy} and {it goes into effect tomorrow}". But the meaning of the original reported statement would not be preserved by changing it to *"{We are planning to build a newsroom} and {it breaks news}", which I think would be nonsensical.
Morten Jonsson said,
January 7, 2022 @ 9:40 am
@Rachael Churchill
I don't see the problem with combining temporal senses. In "We are planning to build a newsroom that breaks news," we and the newsroom are in different realms, temporally speaking: planning is what we will be doing, breaking news is what the newsroom does (even if it isn't doing it yet). It's no more nonsensical than, say, "I am planning to eat breakfast at the place that serves blueberry waffles."
Rachael Churchill said,
January 7, 2022 @ 9:49 am
@Morten Jonsson
Yes, I completely agree. In "We are planning to build a newsroom that breaks news," we and the newsroom are in different times, and that's completely fine. I didn't say that was nonsensical at all.
Th eonly thing I said was nonsensical was my own hypothetical statement *"We are planning to build a newsroom AND IT breaks news". I did that to try to illustrate the difference between the original statement in the OP and Jerry's example.
Morten Jonsson said,
January 7, 2022 @ 11:18 am
@Rachael Churchill
Oh, I see. Thank you.
Jerry Friedman said,
January 7, 2022 @ 11:14 pm
Rachael Churchill: Sorry about calling you "Smith"!
Thanks for the reply. Your second distinction, the one that isn't habitual versus single, seems to be the function of the "that" clause. I can't think of a way to get "tomorrow", or any other word that would sound awkward with a past tense, into a "that" clause in the habitual present, so think I understand the relevance of that distinction.
Writers' Order said,
January 8, 2022 @ 9:04 am
What surprises me most is "planned" instead of "were planning". Maybe everything else just follows from that.
I also wondered about interpreting "broke" and "experimented" as subjunctive instead of past – that would almost work in German – but, judging from this thread, it's not how native speakers think about this anymore.
Daniel Deutsch said,
January 8, 2022 @ 9:54 am
A little birdy (actually a prominent British linguist) told me: “They're right, it's a standard model remoteness use of the preterite form (CGEL, Ch 3). It just extends across quite a few verbs, that's all.”
Stephen Goranson said,
January 9, 2022 @ 8:39 am
Having commented above that occasional non-parallel verb forms may be properly expressive, in news reporting good occasions for such exceptions seem vanishingly small. Yet in interviews, especially in the New Yorker (not the NYT) version of Ben Smith’s halting non-forthcomingness, wild-west?