He lived; he still lives (#70; Topic L)

An earlier post on the verb "to be" (#67) attracted several comments, though only one made it (the reasons for the non-inclusion are unclear, and I don't know what to do). If there is a verb form even more difficult than the present tense of "to be", it would be this verb's past tense. In today's Washington Post, a byline to an article reads: "Steve Luxenberg was Outlook editor from June 1996 through today's issue. After a leave of absence to pursue a writing project, he will return to The Post." Was? From Steve's point of view, was is probably correct, since, as described in the article, he did the final editing of today's issue yesterday morning; after that, his responsibility as Outlook's editor ended. From my point of view, reading today's issue in my hand, Steve is still Outlook's editor -- until today (2/5/06) is over. Which viewpoint is right? Again, I don't know. About 2 weeks ago, some one in a forum for publishers wrote: "David Li is now retired from the list, which is too bad because he lived in the DC area." Um. Good thing the writer added "in the DC area"; if she did not, "he lived" might be interpreted that I have departed from this world. Reading it, particularly only a few days before the Chinese New Year's Day, I could not help asking myself the question: Is my time up? But, being a person of Chinese ancestry, where every occasion is an occasion to learn, I turned it around and wrote a light-hearted response: "I always have a problem with tenses. In a paragraph stated in the past tense, when a statement has continual applicability, should the past tense or present tense be used?" In Chinese, this problem will never come up. Why? Because, the verb "to be" is never used to designate equivalence -- in this regard, Spanish is closer to the Chinese convention: "I am so-and-so" is a no-no; "I respond to so-and-so" is ok. In English, one might say "George Bush is the 43rd president of the USA; he begins working at 7 am every day." In Chinese, one would say "Hu Jintao, premier of China, begins working at 7 am every day." Thus, in the Chinese style, Steve's byline might read as follows: "Steve Luxenberg, Outlook editor from June 1996 through today's issue, plans to take a leave of absence to pursue a writing project and then return to The Post."
Posted at 10:59 pm, Sunday, February 5, 2006