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I don't get homework

It would matter if you read it today when having it finished by today is the homework.

Does it matter if I read a book yesterday and plan read another tomorrow? The verb remains constant but one is past and the other is future

haberd, you were arguing it too
The meanings ARE the same, it is the tense that is different.

The meanings are different and the tenses are different. And yes, you're right the argument is ridiculous. How anybody could think that changing the tense does not change the meaning is beyond me.

Missbo was arguing exactly that earlier on.

Nobody is arguing that different tenses have the same meaning and this has turned into quite a silly argument, but to be fair I should have known that was going to happen. The triumph of hope over experience.

What are we arguing about now? How much does one have to change a sentence in order to alter its meaning? You may not need to make many changes at all.

Yes, the entire sentence changes the meaning but the word 'run' remains the same. It is just whether you have run in the past, or will run in the future - it is still the same old run.

The idea that different tenses have the same meaning was a loony one to begin with.

I'm sorry, tgger. What are we arguing about now? I am going for a run and I went for a run obviously mean different things.

I am going for a run
I went for a run

I guess am going and went have different meanings too.

Will you cook dinner tonight?
I have cooked dinner tonight

I suppose the difference is that in the other cases the verb has changed spellin/ form. I still don't think you have an argument.

I know they mean different things. In the case of the homework they mean completely different things. If anyone thinks that they mean the same thing they can try arguing it out with angry teachers when the homework hasn't been done.

? of course different tenses "mean" (in that sense of mean) different things, that is what a tense does.

Why you wait till a child has reading homework, let them not do it and then explain to the teacher that read in the present tense means the same as read in the past tense and let the teacher and the angry headmistress point the differences out?

"In the case of the homework to read and to have read are completely different and mean different things. Maybe you should take up teaching children how to argue their way out of doing homework! "

How are they different meanings? Please explain (genuine question) . I just see it as a tense difference myself as I think pp do.

"Please read pages 9-11 of this book for homework"

"Have you read pages 9-11?"

Is this the context you think have different meanings????

and anyway I've heard plenty of spokesmen saying We are striking for x and y reasons, rather than the usuage you are claiming is prevalent. Strike is used in lots of ways but some tenses are only relevant to other forms of the meaning. A passive conjugation is still a conjugation, if you are saying that meaning stays the same whatever the conjugation.

You don't need the blooming Rules! You just need to hear the language or read the language in sufficient quantities for the structures of language to sink in.
I know sink is a noun and a verb. Just like jump is or fight. But they come from the same word - the noun is a familiar stage in the English language where a verb become an abstract entity which in turn becomes a seemingly (although still abstract) concrete noun - a thing which is in the process of doing (sinking, jumping,fighting) and gets turned into a thing by common consent. Like a prayer or a drink or a sleep. They are all real tangible seemingly concrete things, but they are in effect abstractions of a verb.

Shall I just flee off to Pedants' Corner nw farewell...

In the case of the homework to read and to have read are completely different and mean different things. Maybe you should take up teaching children how to argue their way out of doing homework!

I strike is constructed differently from I am struck. One is a passive tense. Furthermore, the past tense of to go on strike is constructed consistently with this (I went on strike). I strike in that sense (rarely used, I think, it sounds wrong to me) is surely just a contraction of the real expression - 'I go on strike'? I strike would be I strike as in I strike the anvil with the hammer and in this case the past tense would be I struck.

The sink is indeed different from I sink. One is a noun and one a verb and as such they have different rules relating to their correct use.

learnandsay

The headmistress would think you were barking

It's you I am afaid who doesn't understand.

You don't seem to have any understanding of tenses. The meaning of the sentence ( as an entire sentence) is different according to the time the actions took place, but the specific meaning of the verb - as it is and you contested even that- stays the same.

Think of the very "to be"
I am, I was,
She is, he is
they are, we are, they were,

it's the same meaning.

I've been teaching English to A level at times for over 30 years. Please do me the favour of accepting that I might just know a bit more.

Reading is about specific meaning. Always.

The sink means something different from the I sink. Surely. Unless you want to say, I, Sink rather like I, Claudius. It once meant the same thing or it started from same root but conjugations are just as mobile as the rest of the English language. Why shouldn't they be? It is a free country. It would be most unusual to assume that I sink meant I am a sink.

or Strikers sorry

I'm a native English speaker.

olay naysayers.
Another example of tense changing meaning.

I strike. (as in union)
versus... I am struck. or Stricken. Can mean a variety of stuff but never anything to do with unions. It means something different in a different tense. The passive tense has a different meaning entirely from the union meaning.

whereas you can have Strikes, Strickers, Striking. And those words can be used contextually with many meanings as well as union strikes.