A friend says to me "I broke even in poker today." And I want to tell to him that for the time period since he started playing up to now he always breaks even. If I say "You always break
seven," it will contain an implication to the future. But I want to remove this implication. What should I say?a) You have always broken even.
b) You have always been
alwaysbreaking even.
Answer
The first one is correct for what you are trying to say. Corrections to your other examples are:
You always break even.
You have always been breaking even.
The second one isn’t precisely correct, because “have been breaking even” implies a specific period of time up to now, and always isn’t specific. More correctly then:
You have been breaking even since the day you started playing.
A humorous example of the latter: My father is now 86. One of his younger friends contacted me and expressed concern about his driving, mentioning that he had seen my father run a stop sign. I told him that “Dad has been running that particular stop sign for 40 years!”
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Graduate , Answer Author : BobRodes
