Anybody else mentally add “It Would” to “Its Taking Longer Than We Thought”? I will cop to being a major pedant when it comes to punctuation, grammar and syntax. However, in the absence of “It Would”, you literally have the nonsensical “Its Taking Longer Than We Thought Its Taking”.
Being in the business of fighting ignorance (as opposed to perpetuating it), I would have hoped this error would be apparent and troubling to at least most of us.
“Its Taking Longer Than We Thought It Would Take.”
How’s that?
Fighting Ignorance
It’s taking longer than we thought it would take to fight ignorance when we made our initial evaluation of how long it would take to fight ignorance.
It’s = It is
A real pedant wouldn’t have left out the apostrophe.
No, I don’t mentally add “it would”.
Why?
Because I’ve been surrounded by people who speak English and don’t teach grammar for the last 34 years.
“Fighting Ignorance Since 1973: Truly, the Task has Proven to be of Sisyphean Proportions.”
So, in this case “thought” is a transitive verb?
I’m sorry, but you all fail. The correct answer is –
It’s taking longer than we had thought it would.
No.
It was taking longer than we had thought it would.
would make sense, since “had thought” is pluperfect tense.
What about It’s taking longer than expected as a compromise?
Forget it Cecil, it’s Hofstadter’s law.
I’m not going to say that everything is going as well as we hoped in the war on ignorance. However I do feel that with the latest column we have turned a corner, reached an important milestone, and ignorance is in its death throes.
Yes, I have been exposed. I merely aspire to pedantry.
No way.
It is taking longer than we thought.
We thought it would take less time than it is taking.
Thought is past imperfect
The ‘it would’ is unnecessary - it adds nothing to the meaning, if anything it is misleading as ‘it would’ would normally precede a date or condition.
It is taking longer than we thought it would when we …
I am no grammarian, but speak pretty good RP.