There are two types of past: past that is clear and past that is unclear.
An Unclear Past: How unclear is it?
Sorry that you have to
meet your boss again. At a meeting, your boss may
say something like this: ‘JMB, our main competitor, has changed its selling strategy.’ (The short form of ‘has changed’
is ‘The company’s changed it selling strategy.)
Based on your boss’s words, do you know when ABC
changed its strategy? Or in which year?
Which month? Which date?
Not sure, right? But one thing you are pretty sure of is that: It is in the
past.
This is what an unclear past is about. That is, somehow
you know something has happened but you know nothing about the exact year, month, week, or date. Other examples from your boss may include:
Our profits have dropped (by 20%). (short form: ’ve dropped)
The government has raised the rates of business tax. (short form: ’s raised)
The tense used (have dropped, has raised) has a long name, the present
perfect simple (PPS). The tense is made up of by two elements:
1. has / have ( ’s / ‘ve) +
Well, one question may pop up? Why does your boss use present perfect simple (PPS)? To know why your boss uses PPS, you will be told a story, a romantic one.
An Unclear Past, the Present: A Love Story
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It was 9:59 in the
morning, and Mr UP (Unclear Past) was sweating. He
was late for a meeting, a very important
meeting, a meeting that was going to
change his life. He rushed into a
building, hoping that the lift doors were open for him. Yes, he was right. When he arrived at the ground floor, the lift
was there, and when the doors opened, he saw a woman. What is her name? Ms. Now.
It was love at first sight. And ‘then’ they had a son. So soon? By the way, what is his name? Present
Perfect Simple.
So what is my point? Present Perfect Simple (the son)
is a tense that links up an unclear past (Mr. UP) and the present (Ms. Now). If you want a better picture of what I meant, read the Feel Good Tip:
Unclear Past (Man) + Present (Woman) = Present Perfect Simple (Son)
What does this have to do with English?
You may go back to what your boss has told
you (the first sample sentence): ABC, our main
competitor, has changed its selling strategy.
There is an unclear past in the sentence. What do I
mean? I mean the change has happened, right? But when? What you know is it was something in the past, but an unclear one.
What about the present? You can’t see it, can you? No you can’t.
The present is invisible (you can’t see it with your eyes). It is because
when your boss says something like this, it means you have to do something about it,
about the change of strategy. When
should you do it? Most probably: now (the present).
In other words, your boss told you about something
in the past by using the Present Perfect Simple. And it is you who has to do something about it. That is, an action in the unclear past makes you do something now (or in
the near future).
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