"I used to respect my mum"

Akeem Lasisi

You are likely to find the topic of this lesson curious.

While it is not intended to generate unnecessary sensation, I want us to use it to establish the way many people – old and young – wrongly use the expression “used to”.

It is also a way of introducing the simple present tense and differentiating between its usage and those of the present tense, the present continuous and other forms of tenses in English.

Consider the expression again: “I used to respect my mum.”
Let us make the context in which it was made clear. It was made by a young girl whose mother is still alive. Someone wanted to know whether or not she gives her mother due respect. “So, she answered confidently, “I used to respect my mum.”

Automatically, her statement has caused a lot of confusion. Does she mean that she did respect her mother in the past but she did not (and does not) do so again? If so, what kind of child is she? Did she intend to say gladly that she was and is still a very respectful and morally upright girl who honours her mum always? Indeed, that is her intention. But because, like many other people, she does not know when and how to use ‘used to’ properly, she landed everyone in confusion.

Consider these also:

Master: Mercy, Madam says you don’t take care of the house again. Is it true?

Mercy: No, sir. I used to take care of the house.

Manager: Mr. Adio, I learnt that you come late to office these days.

Adio: No, sir. I used to come to work early.

Like the girl in question, what Mercy meant to say is that she properly takes care of the house while Adio also intended to impress it on his boss that he gets to office promptly. But based on what they said, what do you think would be the response of the master and the manager?

 This means that one can inadvertently land oneself in trouble by not handling the English Language correctly.

The verb phrase, ‘used to’, in this context, expresses something that you consistently did in the past, but which you do not do again. It was more or less a habit then. But for one reason or the other, you have put a stop to it.  The fact being stressed is that what Mercy and others needed to use in their sentences is the present tense and not past.

  I respect my mum (always).

  I (always) take care of the house.

  I come to work early/punctually.

I, therefore, urge readers who have not mastered the correct usage to do so.

The Simple Present Tense
As the name suggests, the simple present tense, otherwise called the present tense, is supposed to be a very simple grammatical concept. It is used to capture an action reflecting the present moment. It locates a situation or event in the present time:

We are in the class.

Aliu is around.

You look tired.

I feel like being in the Senate.

These examples make the tense really simple. But there are other uses of the present tense, and that is where many people handle it wrongly.

Uses of the Simple Present Tense
It expresses a current action. This is the sense in which it is explained above. More examples are:

 Nigeria is in a very bad shape.

 I know why she is angry with me.

 The simple present tense also expresses general truths and repeated actions:

  God is good. (Whether or not you say ‘all the time’, many people believe that God is good.)

  The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

   The earth revolves around the sun.
   It also expresses an action that has become a habit:

   My mentor hates liars.

   Politicians love to manipulate the people.

The simple present tense can also express an action scheduled to take place in the future. The speaker or the writer has the option to use the future tense here, but he can choose to use the Simple Present Tense:

   I see you next week.
   The train leaves at 12 tomorrow.
   The President visits next week.
   Other things being equal, President Cameron leaves office in September.

The examples here may sound a little awkward, but they are correct expressions. You are likely to have observed that newspapers use such expressions a lot in their headlines. A reason for this is that they want to be as brief as possible in the headlines:

Ambode inaugurates Abooru road (on) Tuesday.
Amodu goes home today.

But as far as the media is concerned, there is another technical use of the simple present tense. It can express a past action. For instance, when expressing two tragic incidents that happened the day before, a newspaper would say in its headlines:

   Five travellers drown in Jebba river.

   Militants blow up two oil pipes.

So far, I have tried to explain the differences in the use of the present tense and others such as the past tense and the future. Of course, their uses do overlap in some contexts but it is important that you are sure of what exactly you want to say and the time you want to depict so that you can choose the right tense.

Credit: Punch