I suspect my verbs do NOT agree =) In the following sentence, I'm trying to say that I've asked this girl out for drinks in the past. However, every time I'd ask, she would agree at first and later bail out.

I've asked this girl (BTW, she is a lawyer) out for drinks several times; she is 7, nothing special. She would express interest at first, and later bail out.

The source of my post: http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/e3m3g/dealing_with_a_flake/

  • "I + have" = proper agreement; "she + is" = agreement; "she + would" = agreement. Am I missing something? – Kosmonaut Nov 9 '10 at 19:39
  • So the sentence is correct in the meaning I am trying to express? – Anderson Silva Nov 9 '10 at 19:42
  • Yes. I notice you added the source, which says "bailed out" instead of "bail out". "Bail out" is the correct one. – Kosmonaut Nov 9 '10 at 19:57
  • 2
    Because of would — the verb it modifies takes the infinitive. The phrase "express interest" is conjoined with the phrase "later bail", so both express and bail are being modified by the modal verb would ("she would [express...] and [later bail...]"), and thus both take the infinitive form. If you used bailed, then it would mean conjoining at a different place (which is syntactically possible: "she [would express] and [later bailed]"), but since this is a habitual action, bailed (expressing a single occurrence in the past) doesn't fit semantically. – Kosmonaut Nov 9 '10 at 20:51
  • 2
    OT: "she is 7" implies that she is seven years old. "she is a 7" is an evaluation of her appearance. (If I'm way off base in this comment, it's because I have not clicked on the link.) – Jeffrey L Whitledge Nov 9 '10 at 21:46

That sounds good to me, actually. The "She would do this" construction implies a repeated action in the past for me. "She would eat ice cream daily when she was bored at home." Likewise "I have asked several times" is a repeated action in the past.

Your Answer

