# if I am about to have killed my dog



## HSS

> [...]
> My dog ate 1 raisin yesterday around midnight. I was able to induce vomiting within 30 minutes of consumption and the raisin came out immediately after, still fully intact.
> [...]
> I will be taking her to the vet as soon as they open in 2 hours, but just want to know if *I am about to have killed my dog*.
> (source)


I presume this perfect infinitive is a bit redundant. Just saying 'if I am about to kill my dog' suffices, doesn't it? If not, what is the difference?


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## grassy

HSS said:


> If not, what is the difference?


The way I see it she's asking whether what she did in the past (= letting her dog eat 1 raisin) will result in her dog being killed. She's not saying she will kill her dog (e.g. put it down).


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## velisarius

​It's an odd choice of verb form, and it doesn't stand up to logical analysis. If the dog is about to die as a result of her actions, then in a sense she's already killed it. Perhaps it's knowingly odd. (The writer seems a bit of  a drama queen.)

I'd write: ... _in two hours I will find out whether I've just killed my dog._

(crossposted)


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## HSS

Hi, grassy. Hi, velisarius.

I would have been better if I had added a little more.


> [...] It has been about 27 hour now and my dog just threw up, but is showing no other symptoms of grape poisoning. [...]


He is alive. So perhaps the subtlety of this perfect infinitive is the past action affecting and resulting in killing him? And that makes it differ from the simple infinitive?


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## DonnyB

It sounds extremely odd to me, and I somehow doubt a native speaker would actually say that.  Apart from anything else, "I am about to" strongly suggests you're on the point of doing something deliberately.

"I think/I'm worried that I may have accidentally killed my dog" is a far more natural way of saying that, in my opinion.


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## bearded

> want to know if *I am about to have killed my dog*.


Perhaps  ..._want to know if I was/have been about to kill my dog._


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## velisarius

I don't see how you can be "about to" have done something if you've already done it. It will shortly be revealed whether you have in fact done the dreadful deed.


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## e2efour

It would have to be _I'm about to have my dog killed._


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## velisarius

I don't think the person in question was about to _have their dog killed_, unless it turns out that the dog was going to die a horrible death and the vet said it would be better to euthanise it.


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## Thomas Tompion

HSS said:


> I presume this perfect infinitive is a bit redundant. Just saying 'if I am about to kill my dog' suffices, doesn't it? If not, what is the difference?


The difference between _I am about to kill my dog_ and _I am about to have killed my dog_?

The point is, Hiro, that the situation is more complicated than can be explained by either of these formulae.

I don't think you can normally be about to have done something; there's an incompatibility in the expressions of time: you can't be on the point of doing something yesterday, or of having done it tomorrow.

We'd have, in your case, to expand to something like: _I am about to find that I have killed my dog_.


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## Loob

Here's another vote for the original phrasing being odd: I wouldn't examine it too closely, Hiro.  

The writer *is* pretty distressed.


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## abluter

Are raisins particularly bad for dogs? (Forgive my ignorance. . .)


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## HSS

Thanks, everyone. Concluded that it's a weird sentence. The person I think was wondering whether the dog was about to die after the way he consumed a raisin.

Raisins may cause kidney failure in dogs, abluter.

Thanks very much, everyone.


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## Keith Bradford

I think what she means is "I just want to know if I am about to *be told by the vet* that I have killed my dog." But the language is totally garbled.


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## velisarius

I just want to know whether *I am about to (find out that I) have killed my dog*.

(One of my dogs once ate half a tray of unbaked bread dough that had been left to rise. He suffered no ill effects, and my English didn't go to pieces though my kids did.)


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## HSS

But the dog is still alive, only having thrown up with no other symptoms .... All in all, it's a totally funny sentence.


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## velisarius

The writer anticipates the possibility of a a negative prognosis from the vet.


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## elroy

It makes sense to me.

I’m about to have killed my dog = I’m about to _be in a state of having_ killed my dog, i.e. my dog is about to die due to something I’ve done 

If I’ve so far spent $19 of the $20 I originally had and I’m about to spend the last dollar, I can say “I’m about to have spent $20” (“I’m about to _be in a state of having_ spent $20”).

In other words, the statement “I’ve killed my dog” / “I’ve spent $20” is about to apply to me.


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## Thomas Tompion

velisarius said:


> I don't see how you can be "about to" have done something if you've already done it.[...]


I don't see how you can be about to have done something, even if you've not already done it.

There's no example in the British Corpus of anyone being about to have done anything.


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## elroy

Here's an example from nasdaq.com:

Bond yields remain historically low, the Federal Reserve has pledged to leave its federal funds rate untouched through 2023, and the U.S. federal government is_* about to have spent*_ around $5 trillion on the pandemic.​3 Penny Stocks That Can Double Your $1,400 Stimulus Check​


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## HSS

Hi elroy. Do you think it would be an American reagionalism? Could '*I am about to have died*!' be employed to express embarrassment then? I'm curious.

'... And, you know what the President said? He said 'I heard so much about you'! He said he heard SO MUCH about me! God, I'm about to have died!'


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## LVRBC

It doesn't appear to be a regionalism, but rather a person confused and upset who is trying to say "I want to know if my dog is about to die,"   with the added context that her action in letting it eat a raisin will make her responsible for the death.
(I had no clue about grapes & raisins and canine renal failure prior to looking it up for this question.)


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## HSS

Hi LVRBC,

Thanks. How about my rendition of utterance? Does it flow? Does it make any sense?


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## bennymix

Keith Bradford said:


> I think what she means is "I just want to know if I am about to *be told by the vet* that I have killed my dog." But the language is totally garbled.



Even that proposal, while better, is not quite right.  If the vet gets the dog before its death, he would not say, except as a metaphor or in case of death momentarily coming, 'You've killed your dog.'   'killed' implies a death has happened.   Assuming the dog looks poorly the vet can say, "You've mortally poisoned your dog." or "You've allowed your dog to be lethally affected."

As to my own statement, what's true is, perhaps,  "I'm about to find out that my dog is mortally poisoned."

As to "I'm about to have killed my dog", I question this, except perhaps if the dog is momentarily about to expire.   However IF the dog ate dozens of raisons and it's going to take a few hrs, then one would say, "When this evening comes, my dog will be dead and I will have killed it.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2021
kill1  _(kil),_v.t. 

to deprive of life in any manner;
cause the death of;
slay.


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## LVRBC

HSS said:


> Hi LVRBC,
> 
> Thanks. How about my rendition of utterance? Does it flow? Does it make any sense?


We can interpret the original only by context; it is too confused to paraphrase.  It would be better to find something else for purposes of language learning.


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## bennymix

HSS said:


> Hi elroy. Do you think it would be an American reagionalism? Could '*I am about to have died*!' be employed to express embarrassment then? I'm curious.
> 
> '... And, you know what the President said? He said 'I heard so much about you'! He said he heard SO MUCH about me! God, I'm about to have died!'



That last is a very strange remark;   sounds non-native, perhaps.


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## bearded

Nobody seems to have taken my suggestion according to  #6 into consideration.  I think that expressions like

- I am about to have killed my dog
- I am about to have died
- I am about to have spent..

are indeed americanisms (or at least they sound as such to my non-native ears).

The following alternatives would sound more usual and correct to me: 
 respectively
- I was about to kill my dog
- I was about to die
- I was about to spend..
(''I have been'' instead of ''I was'', depending on context).

I would be interested in reading BE-speakers' opinions on this.


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## elroy

No, you can’t use “spend” instead of “have spent” in my example and the one I cited.  I’m not about to spend $20 , and the US government is not about to spend $5 trillion.   Similarly, in the original example, they are not worried that they are about to kill their dog.   In all of these examples, changing the tense changes the meaning drastically.

“I’m about to have died” isn’t used because “I’m about to die” means the same thing.  The perfect infinitive isn’t used unless there’s a reason to (i.e. unless it expresses a different meaning from the simple infinitive).


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## bearded

elroy said:


> I’m not about to spend $20


I wrote ''I *was* about to spend'' - it should roughly correspond to your ''I am about to have spent''.
In the original example, they are worried that they (might)* have been* about to kill their dog.


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## elroy

bearded said:


> I wrote ''I *was* about to spend'' - it should roughly correspond to your ''I am about to have spent''.


No, those mean totally different things.

Yesterday at the market I saw a $20 blouse that I liked and decided to buy it.  I *was about to spend* $20.

Today, I’ve spent $19 of the $20 I originally had.  I*’m about to spend* $1.  I*’m about to have spent *$20.



bearded said:


> In the original example, they are worried that they (might)* have been* about to kill their dog.


No, the original can’t mean this.  You can’t use the present tense (“I’m about to...”) instead of the past tense (“I was about to...”).


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## bearded

Thomas Tompion said:


> I don't see how you can be about to have done something, even if you've not already done it.
> There's no example in the British Corpus of anyone being about to have done anything.


BE speakers seem to perceive verbal tenses differently from our friend elroy...


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## elroy

@Thomas Tompion is claiming the entire construction is invalid.  You are claiming it has a meaning it can’t possibly have.  There’s a huge difference.

Anyway, I don’t think there’s a US/UK difference here.  I think the construction is very rare because there are very few situations in which it’s needed — and even in those situations there are other ways to express the meaning (for example, “In a few minutes I’ll have spent $20”).

I think it sounds odd to many native speakers because it’s so rare.

I think the construction is grammatical and has only one possible meaning, and I don’t think this is different in US English vs. UK English.


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## bearded

elroy said:


> You are claiming it has a meaning it can’t possibly have


No, I just tried (see my 'perhaps' in #6) to interpret the OP constrution, which is wrong for me, and proposed an alternative.  I fully agree with T.Tompion.


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## elroy

A couple more examples of usage:

He is *about to have played (and started)* for 25 percent of NFL teams, which is more impressive than his beard.
Ranking each NFL team’s potential Hall of Famers on current roster

The two teams are *about to have played *the equivalent of three full football games.
Flem File: Sudden-death scenarios

And here’s a grammar book that lists the construction: 
A new English grammar for the junior classes in schools


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## Şafak

elroy said:


> He is *about to have played (and started)* for 25 percent of NFL teams, which is more impressive than his beard.
> Ranking each NFL team’s potential Hall of Famers on current roster
> 
> The two teams are *about to have played *the equivalent of three full football games.
> Flem File: Sudden-death scenarios


Must admit these indeed make sense.


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## elroy

Yup!


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## elroy

Jennifer Weiss currently has 1398 posts.  Assuming they post at their regular pace, they are *about to have posted *1400 times.  They are certainly not *about to post *1400 times!


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## velisarius

i suspect that table of tenses in the last link elroy posted was based on Latin verbs rather than on English usage. It looks like  a very old grammar book.

I wouldn't use either of these, but I agree they are grammatical possibilities:

_He was about to buy/to have bought a lemon, but I warned him in time. _(He nearly bought it but he didn't.)
_He was about to have bought a lemon, but I reassured him that the car was fine. _(He bought the dodgy old car, but luckily it turned out not to be a lemon.)


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## elroy

velisarius said:


> _He was about to buy/to have bought a lemon, but I warned him in time. _(He nearly bought it but he didn't.)
> _He was about to have bought a lemon, but I reassured him that the car was fine. _(He bought the dodgy old car, but luckily it turned out not to be a lemon.)


In those examples, I would only use “to buy.”  There’s no reason to use “have bought.”


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## bennymix

elroy said:


> A couple more examples of usage:
> 
> He is *about to have played (and started)* for 25 percent of NFL teams, which is more impressive than his beard.
> Ranking each NFL team’s potential Hall of Famers on current roster
> 
> The two teams are *about to have played *the equivalent of three full football games.
> Flem File: Sudden-death scenarios
> 
> And here’s a grammar book that lists the construction:
> A new English grammar for the junior classes in schools



I think it depends on the verb [and action] as continuous(or periodic) or at a point.

Serial guy:  "I'm about to have killed 5 people [is in process of #5]."  
One-time guy, NOT in process of shooting you, but plans to, in a half hour.  "I'm about to have have killed you."


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## velisarius

I forgot to note that "I *was* about to have bought" is perhaps slightly easier to imagine than "I *am *about to have bought".

I don't find any reason to use "about to have (_done_)" at all.


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## elroy

velisarius said:


> I don't find any reason to use "about to have bought" at all.


I’ve already bought three candles.  I am *about to buy* a fourth.  I am *about to have bought* four candles.


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## bearded

velisarius said:


> slightly easier


I would say: *much *easier.


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## DonnyB

I agree that some of the different examples people have come up with would work, but going back to the original question which was asked I'm still unconvinced that anyone would actually say "*I am about to have killed my dog*."  

To me it barely makes sense.  I assume from the context originally supplied what they probably meant was something more like "*I am about to find out I've have killed my dog"*.


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## elroy

The speaker may have been thinking of the process of killing the dog as a long, drawn-out process, not a quick one.  From the moment they gave the dog the raisin, they would have initiated the killing process, which would culminate with the dog dying as a result of consuming the raisin.

I’m about to have killed my dog. = The killing process I initiated is about to end with my dog’s death.

It makes sense to me. 🤷🏻‍♂️


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## HSS

elroy said:


> No, you can’t use “spend” instead of “have spent” in my example and the one I cited.  I’m not about to spend $20 , and the US government is not about to spend $5 trillion.   Similarly, in the original example, they are not worried that they are about to kill their dog.   In all of these examples, changing the tense changes the meaning drastically.
> 
> “I’m about to have died” isn’t used because “I’m about to die” means the same thing.  The perfect infinitive isn’t used unless there’s a reason to (i.e. unless it expresses a different meaning from the simple infinitive).


elroy's examples have all started before the point of utterance and are continuing. And the speakers expect the actions to have developed to a certain extent and completed. If and only if the 'dying' is a continuous action in this case and it has started before this speech and the speaker thinks it will be done: I am about to have died. (figuratively here) ?????


velisarius said:


> i suspect that table of tenses in the last link elroy posted was based on Latin verbs rather than on English usage. It looks like  a very old grammar book.
> 
> I wouldn't use either of these, but I agree they are grammatical possibilities:
> 
> _He was about to buy/to have bought a lemon, but I warned him in time. _(He nearly bought it but he didn't.)
> _He was about to have bought a lemon, but I reassured him that the car was fine. _(He bought the dodgy old car, but luckily it turned out not to be a lemon.)


And the first one in veli's is different in that it shows a non-accomplished perfect infinitive. Much like 'I wanted to have bought the car.' ?????


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## elroy

HSS said:


> If and only if the 'dying' is a continuous action in this case and it has started before this speech and the speaker thinks it will be done


See my last post.


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## HSS

elroy said:


> See my last post.


Can't agree with you more.


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## HSS

Now if the sentence is: I *was* about to have burst into tears, could it mean

it looked as if I was about to burst into tears *but I didn't in the end*? Often the perfect infinitive connotes a thing that did not happen after all.

Cf. I would like to have been to Kyoto when I was in western Japan.


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## Thomas Tompion

HSS said:


> Now if the sentence is: I *was* about to have burst into tears, could it mean
> 
> it looked as if I was about to burst into tears *but I didn't in the end*? Often the perfect infinitive connotes a thing that did not happen after all.
> 
> Cf. I would like to have been to Kyoto when I was in western Japan.


I think we have much more likely ways of saying that, Hiro, like _I felt I was about to burst into tears_.


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## HSS

Thomas Tompion said:


> I think we have much more likely ways of saying that, Hiro, like _I felt I was about to burst into tears_.


Yes, TT, that sounds more like it. Yet could my sentence mean as I said too? I'm curious.


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## Thomas Tompion

HSS said:


> Yes, TT, that sounds more like it. Yet could my sentence mean as I said too? I'm curious.


_I *was* about to have burst into tears_ - your suggestion.

I can't imagine anyone saying it.  If it's like Orpheus and bursting into tears will mean death for your wife, you'd still be likely to alter the first verb rather than produce a past infinitive - _I had been almost about to burst into tears_.


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## HSS

I see, TT. It seems as though 'to have _done_' after 'be about' does not work to convey an unfinished action/happening, which I was wondering about.

Thank you, TT, as always.

Hiro


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