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ESL forum >
Grammar and Linguistics > It īs time/ It īs high time
It īs time/ It īs high time
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liewsusfah
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It īs time/ It īs high time
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Quite confused over this kind of sentences. Could someone help, pls: (a) It īs time that we go home.
Why must it be :
(b) It īs high time that we went home.
My question is : Can we say
(c) It īs high time that we go home.
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13 May 2013
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alex1968
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There are various formations:
It īs (high/about) time + subj + past simple
It īs time you did your homework!
It īs about time the kids went to bed.
It īs high time we went.
It īs time + to-inf (The speaker is also included)
It īs time to go. (= we should all go now)
It īs time + for + obj pronoun + to-inf
It īs time for us to go.
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13 May 2013
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oumsalsabil
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I think that the phrase (b) will sound better if you omit "that" and add (high/ about) before time ; and it suggests that we should have gone home before now . THE PHRASE implies that we are late and there is no more time to waste .
This will certainly explain why the past form is used here to give advice coze normally we give advice about what should be done in the future not the past since we can īt change past actions.Now to give advice about the future we use the same phrase but we replace the past form of the verb with the to infinitive and without (high/ about) before time.Note that it is not wrong at all to use the past here . So we can say: It īs time we were going home or it īs time for us to go home. The two sentences mean that this is the right time to leave and we are not late.
As for your last question , the phrase looks clumsy and it īs better to replace it with it īs time(for us)to go home |
14 May 2013
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MoodyMoody
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As a native speaker of American English, it sounds fine to me to say "It īs high time we go home." In fact, it sounds better to me than "It īs high time we went home." I haven īt thought about the rules as much as alex1968 or oumsalsabil, but my guess is that the construction is a leftover of the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive in English is on life support at best; it is dying.
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14 May 2013
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yanogator
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I mostly agree with MoodyMoody, but (probably because I īm old), "It īs high time we go home" doesn īt sound good to me. I definitely agree that the Subjunctive is quickly disappearing, but it will hold on for many years in existing expressions. However, "I wish I was..." has almost completely replaced "I wish I were...", and I īm happy to see that happening. Bruce |
14 May 2013
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