# EN: it's a long time the old girl acted like this



## ruffiniere

Context: A taxi driver had a problem with his car: " it's a long time the old girl *acted* like this" the driver said apologetically. "I expected her to give some trouble..." I am surprise by the use of a *past simple* here. Is it correct? What does he mean?


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## franc 91

I think the word 'since' is missing after  - a long time


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## Woofer

It's not standard English, but is a fairly common idiom in certain American regional dialects.  This dialect is a bit dated, you might encounter it in a novel or among an older generation, but kids don't talk like this anymore.  The meaning is roughly...

"The car has been acting like this for a long time."


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## ruffiniere

*Context*: the writer reports what his taxi driver said to him when his car broke down: "It’s a long time since the old girl* acted*like this,” the driver said apologetically. “I* had been expecting* her to give some trouble, for she *has not been pulling* at all well recently."
*My question*: are there any other possibilities for the use of tenses   than the past simple, past perfect continuous and present perfect continuous used here in this context?
Thank you


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## WordRef1

As was said, that is not a standard dialect. I would expect, "The old girl *has been acting* like this for a long time." or possibly even, "It has been a long time that she *has been acting* like this." 
I would expect a rather different meaning with "acted". "It has been a long time *since* she *has acted *like this," meaning that it hasn't happened for a long time. Maybe the last time was a year ago, rather than it has been happening for a long time up to the present. For example, it started a year ago and has been happening since then up to now (when the car stopped working).
The rest seems right to me.


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## ruffiniere

Thank you; ok for the use of "acted". What I wanted to know now was: are there other *possibilities* in the use of "I* had been expecting"* &  "she *has not been pulling**" *in the context: "It’s a long time since the old girl* acted*like this,” the driver said apologetically. “I* had been expecting* her to give some trouble, for she *has not been pulling* at all well recently."Thank you again. R


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## Oddmania

Bonjour 

Je n'ai jamais été très familier avec le present/past perfect en -ING, mais selon moi,_ She has not been pulling _est plutôt obligatoire, le present perfect en -ING pouvant servir à exprimer le résultat d'une action passé. On peux le trouver après _because _ou *for* lorsqu'il veut dire _car.


_


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## WordRef1

Oddmania said:


> Bonjour
> 
> Je n'ai jamais été très familier avec le present/past perfect en -ING, mais selon moi,_ She has not been pulling _est plutôt obligatoire, le present perfect en -ING pouvant servir à exprimer le résultat d'une action passé. On peux le trouver après _because _ou *for* lorsqu'il veut dire _car.
> 
> _


Je suis d'accord. I can't think of any other way to say those things.


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## ruffiniere

Thank you both


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## Giorgio Spizzi

If ruffiniere's original sentence " it's a long time the old girl acted like this" is changed into " it's a long time *since* the old girl acted like this" (as franc 91 most reasonably proposes), then the meaning is the opposite of what Woofer tells us thru his translation. I suspect the _bagnole_ has been behaving properly for a long time, the time since she last *acted badly* in fact. Which justifies the driver's expecting some trouble sooner or later.


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## ruffiniere

Thank you Giorgo Spizi, your answer confirms WordRef1 ["It has been a long time *since* she *has acted *like this," meaning that it hasn't happened for a long time.]' "Ma caisse [ _ ma bagnole_]m'avait pas fait un coup comme çà depuis longtemps..."


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## Oddmania

Um, that's strange, I would've said _It has been a long time since she acted like this _

_It has been_ with the _Present Perfect tense_, but _she acted_ with Preterit because it refers to the last time she did this, to a precise event which belongs to the past.

Just like in that kind of sentence : _He haven't seen them since he left London._

But that's another sentence that would require a new thread so let's forget it, I guess it's not the same everytime.


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## ruffiniere

To me we can say both:"It has been a long time *since* she *has acted *like this"
_"It has been a long time since she acted like this_". In Word Ref.'s suggestion, I think we can use  the present perfect with the complementary nuance that we see things happening in the past but having results in the present (the car is now breaking down)....


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## Giorgio Spizzi

*Sorrie* à tous e à toutes. Here's the sentence after detecting all my misprints: "It has been a long time since she acted like this", meaning that the car acted badly on a certain occasion in the past, then she behaved for a long time, and now we witness a new episode of misbehaviour. Which, I repeat, justifies the expectations of imminent disaster.


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