Context: Let's say I'm telling this story to my brother (or any audience, really) right now about an interaction that I had with a female friend last week, which one of these is correct?
After 2 hours, I asked her if she still wanted to eat the cake.
After 2 hours, I asked her if she still wants to eat the cake.
Posted Aug 18, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC
I vote for the first option
Why?
Just seems more correct.
I have spoken English for almost 40 years. (And only English) ...that doesn’t mean I am right though.
Honestly, I'm quite sure they both work, but preference for one or the other may depend more on regional accent/personal choice than anything.
My first reaction was to vote for #1 as well, as this seemed more natural to me in my dialect of English, but then I thought about it and #2 works just as fine.
The first seems a little better because the second implies that there's still cake left, or at least that it's still possible to eat the cake.
This comes down to the idea of 'Reported speech'. At that time you said 'Do you still want to eat the cake?' with a present tense verb. Normally when we report speech in the past, we put all the verbs into a past tense: 'I asked her if she still wanted to eat the cake.' (NB that if your verb is in the past simple or past continuous already, then you put it into the past perfect or past perfect continuous)
The first one is correct. The initial prepositional clause indicates past action, then past-tense verbs are used consistently, which confirms the temporal state indicated.
The second sentence departs from the past tense midway through the sentence. This could be an error on the part of the author, and it could be recognized as an error by the reader, but this is not the only possibility. Consider this sentence:
Here the shift in tense is appropriate, because words from the past, when the events described were taking place in what was then the present, are being quoted. Now consider the possibility that the person writing the sentence does not want to use or does not know the actual words used, but still wants to narratively transport the reader to the earlier time.
Time shifting like this can serve a narrative purpose by putting the events described in an out-of-time present, allowing the reader to virtually observe the action. Using a quotation accomplishes this in an abbreviated form with economy and simplicity, but it is not the only option. Such a shift can be done simply by changing verb cases. It is more often seen in an extended form, but it is possible the writer might intend this kind of observational narrative without using the actual words said. If so, the second sentence could very well be the result, with no error.
Obviously when done mid-sentence like this such an intent can be indistinguishable from an error, particularly if this narrative technique is discontinued in the next sentence.
How come people on this other thread says it's "wants"? Can you chime in?
That response seems to have been deleted. Perhaps the author doubted their own answer.
Here's what it looked like orignally: https://www.removeddit.com/r/grammar/comments/crxmar/which_one_is_more_grammatically_correct/
Nonetheless, the person who responded to me still believes it's "wants".
Okay, that answer is basically useless. The assertion that the past tense is only applicable if the cake was already eaten is ridiculous.
This sub has many people whose language skills are poor, unfortunately.