# how many customers I got waiting



## RomanPinsEveryone

Source: A video in which a barber seems to be berating a former customer for having gone to another barber.  Cagey, moderator 


"* You know how many customers I got waiting on me?* "



Which one is the complete version of the sentence?

" *You know how many customers I got were waiting on me?* "  or   "*You know how many customers I got that were waiting on me?* "

I need native English speakers' advice, thanks!

Edited to remove video link.  Cagey, moderator


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## Keith Bradford

No, the sentence is complete except for an initial "Do..."  (And it would be more elegant if "have" replaced "got".)

Compare:
Do you know how many customers I have waiting on me? 
Do you see how many books I have sitting on that shelf?
Did you hear how many men she has inviting her out for dates?


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Maybe I got it wrong.

Is the sentence telling us that the speaker had so many customers to wait on?


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## bennymix

"waiting on" in very informal English often means "waiting for".   I suspect the sentence, in good English is  "Do you know how many customers I have waiting for me [to serve them]?"

I agree with Keith, above;   the compression does not create any grammar errors.  "have", for "got" is better grammar.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

bennymix said:


> "waiting on" in very informal English often means "waiting for".   I suspect the sentence, in good English is  "Do you know how many customers I have waiting for me [to serve them]?"



So neither of these sentences below are correct?



_*Do you know how many customers I got that were waiting for me?

Do you know how many customers I got were waiting for me?

*_
I'm trying to figure out what he meant.


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## sound shift

He's talking about the present. The "I got" is not the past tense but a colloquial version of the present tense "I've got". Because this is about the present, your inclusion of the word "were" is not correct.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

sound shift said:


> He's talking about the present. The "I got" is not the past tense but a colloquial version of the present tense "I've got". Because this is about the present, your inclusion of the word "were" is not correct.




How about

_*Do you know how many customers I got that are waiting for me?

Do you know how many customers I got are waiting for me?

*_
Which one means the same as the original one ?


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## bennymix

_*Do you know how many customers I got that are waiting for me?*_

This is fine.   It also might be compressed, deleting "that are".


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> < ---- > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmFLsF8WpkE&feature=youtu.be&t=4m13s
> 
> 
> 
> "* You know how many customers I got waiting on me?* "
> 
> 
> 
> Which one is the complete version of the sentence?
> 
> " *You know how many customers I got were waiting on me?* "  or   "*You know how many customers I got that were waiting on me?* "
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I need native English speakers' advice, thanks!


As I understand it, one word and the last part of another word are omitted:

_Do you know how many customers I've got waiting on me?_

Even with these elements included, there is ambiguity at least two places: (1) "waiting on" could be meant as "serving" or as "waiting for", and (2) "I've got waiting" could be meant as "I've got who are waiting" or as "I have caused to be waiting" or "I have managed to get waiting".

This "I['ve] got" is an intensified "I have" that can save a lot of words and details. We use it for many purposes, such as "I've got the key" = "I have the key with me", "I've got a car" = "I have my own car" or "I have a car here with me", "I've got work to do" = "I have work that I have to do myself".

So I think the most likely meaning is "Do you know how many customers are specifically my responsibility to help who are waiting for me?".

Your interpretation of "customers I got" as "customers that I got" does not work because it would leave the sentence without a main verb. We don't omit "are" or "were" that way.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

bennymix said:


> _*Do you know how many customers I got that are waiting for me?*_
> This is fine.   It also might be compressed, deleting "that are".



How about 

_*Do you know how many customers I got that wait for me?*_


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## sound shift

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> _*Do you know how many customers I got that wait for me?*_


I'm afraid not. It's a different meaning from the meaning in post 1. The situation that it describes is rather improbable, too: customers who _habitually _wait for you.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

sound shift said:


> I'm afraid not. It's a different meaning from the meaning in post 1. The situation that it describes is rather improbable, too: customers who _habitually _wait for you.



Have you seen that video? It got deleted by the admin. If you haven't seen it then I can send the video link to you.

That barber says "* You know how many customers I got waiting on me?* " when the barbershop is closed and it's raining.

So why is " *Do you know how many customers I got that are waiting for me? " *correct_?_   No one is waiting for the barber at this moment !


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## Keith Bradford

Yes they are, they're waiting at home...


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Wait guys! The original sentence "*You know how many customers I got waiting on me?*" on#1 , what does the "_*waiting on*_" mean?

I think it means waiting for, because it seems like he has lots of customers to be served but he can't serve all the customers at the same time, so the other customers need to wait for the barber.

But if it means serving, then that means the customers are serving the barber right now, which doesn't make sense.

I don't know if my thoughts are correct or not.


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> Wait guys! The original sentence "*You know how many customers I got waiting on me?*" on#1 , what does the "_*waiting on*_" mean?
> 
> I think it means waiting for, because it seems like he has lots of customers to be served but he can't serve all the customers at the same time, so the other customers need to wait for the barber.
> 
> But if it means serving, then that means the customers are serving the barber right now, which doesn't make sense.
> 
> I don't know if my thoughts are correct or not.


Yes, they are correct. It is good to have the context now.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Yes, they are correct. It is good to have the context now.



Thanks. This may be my first correct understanding of something I don't really understand.


How about the sentence that Keith Bradford provided "*Did you hear how many men she has inviting her out for dates?*" ?

Does it mean "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*" ?

Or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_"


Thank you again.


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> Thanks. This may be my first correct understanding of something I don't really understand.
> 
> 
> How about the sentence that Keith Bradford provided "*Did you hear how many men she has inviting her out for dates?*" ?
> 
> Does it mean "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*" ?
> 
> Or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_"
> 
> 
> Thank you again.


Yes. Both, among other possibilities.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Yes. Both, among other possibilities.




But I don't really understand the difference between"*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*"  and  "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_".  Can someone point it out?


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> But I don't really understand the difference between"*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*"  and  "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_".  Can someone point it out?


It is a difference in aspect, which has to do with time intervals. "Invite" is present tense, "simple" aspect; "are inviting" is present tense, progressive (or continuous) aspect. The time interval we have in mind for "are inviting" ends before the inviting ends, but the time interval we have in mind for "invite" likely does not.

Tense, aspect, and mood are absent from the nonfinite verb form (present participle) "inviting". "Men that invite", "men that have invited", "men that invited", "men that had been inviting", etc., give us tense and aspect information. "Men inviting" does not.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> It is a difference in aspect, which has to do with time intervals. "Invite" is present tense, "simple" aspect; "are inviting" is present tense, progressive (or continuous) aspect. The time interval we have in mind for "are inviting" ends before the inviting ends, but the time interval we have in mind for "invite" likely does not.
> Tense, aspect, and mood are absent from the nonfinite verb form (present participle) "inviting". "Men that invite", "men that have invited", "men that invited", "men that had been inviting", etc., give us tense and aspect information. "Men inviting" does not.



So, not only these two possibilities but also sentences like "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that were inviting her out for dates?*" and "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invited her out for dates?*_"  are parts of the answers?


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> So, not only these two possibilities but also sentences like "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that were inviting her out for dates?*" and "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invited her out for dates?*_"  are parts of the answers?


Yes.

The fact is, a participial phrase beginning with a present participle is not a relative clause with something missing but a different construct, with its own meaning. Each relative clause has tense, aspect, and mode, which bring in their own meanings, and a participial phrase sometimes has implications that cannot be expressed by a relative clause in the same sentence.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Yes.
> The fact is, a participial phrase beginning with a present participle is not a relative clause with something missing but a different construct, with its own meaning. Each relative clause has tense, aspect, and mode, which bring in their own meanings, and a participial phrase sometimes has implications that cannot be expressed by a relative clause in the same sentence.




I know. I know that a participial phrase is a different construction, only sometimes it can be said it's related to a relative clause.

But what I really want to know, it's how native English speakers react to participial phrases when they hear or read them.

Like, when they see the sentence "*Did you hear how many men she has inviting her out for dates*",

they interpret it as "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that were inviting her out for dates?*"  or "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*"

or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invited her out for dates?*_", or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_",

OR neither of them is what you would interpret as?

Thank you !


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> I know. I know that a participial phrase is a different construction, only sometimes it can be said it's related to a relative clause.
> 
> But what I really want to know, it's how native English speakers react to participial phrases when they hear or read them.
> 
> Like, when they see the sentence "*Did you hear how many men she has inviting her out for dates*",
> 
> they interpret it as "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that were inviting her out for dates?*"  or "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*"
> 
> or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invited her out for dates?*_", or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_",
> 
> OR neither of them is what you would interpret as?
> 
> Thank you !


Without any context, there is no reason to hypothesize a change from present tense "has" to past tense "was" or "invited", so I would expect the sentence to mean "... that invite ...", "... that are inviting ...", or maybe "... who have been inviting ...", or to mean "Did you hear how many men she has managed to get to invite her out for dates?".

If I had to guess about the speaker's intent, I would say the two most likely meanings are the first "... that invite ..." and the last "... managed to get to invite ...", each with about 50% probability.

This ambiguity cannot be resolved without context.


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## Packard

Keith Bradford said:


> No, the sentence is complete except for an initial "Do..."  (And it would be more elegant if "have" replaced "got".)
> 
> Compare:
> Do you know how many customers I have waiting on me?



I have an issue with this.  If I am going to use proper grammar as you have here, then I want to hear, "Do you know how many customers I have waiting_* for*_ me?

If I am abandoning the grammar then I am OK with "on me", and as a spoken phrase I think, "Do you know how many customers I got waitin' on me?" sounds more natural.


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## Hermione Golightly

I'm a native speaker of British English.


> I have an issue with this. If I am going to use _proper grammar _as you have here, then I want to hear, "Do you know how many customers _I have _waiting_* for*_ me?


My italics.

I so love agreeing with Packard. 

If you want to sound some sort of uneducated, by all means say
"Do you know how many customers I got waitin' on me?"
Some people, maybe millions, talk like that.


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## Packard

Hermione Golightly said:


> I'm a native speaker of British English.
> 
> My italics.
> 
> I so love agreeing with Packard.
> 
> If you want to sound some sort of uneducated, by all means say
> "Do you know how many customers I got waitin' on me?"
> Some people, maybe millions, talk like that.



I would not say, "uneducated", I would say "barber shop-educated".  It is the sort of phrasing I would expect my old barber to use.  (He's probably still my old barber but I just don't need haircuts anymore).

It just sounds "conversational" to me.


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## bennymix

Hermione Golightly said:


> I'm a native speaker of British English.
> 
> My italics.
> 
> I so love agreeing with Packard.
> 
> If you want to sound some sort of uneducated, by all means say
> "Do you know how many customers I got waitin' on me?"
> Some people, maybe millions, talk like that.



I agree with Hermione.  Sounds uneducated.   However it is likely valid in some AE dialects.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Without any context, there is no reason to hypothesize a change from present tense "has" to past tense "was" or "invited", so I would expect the sentence to mean "... that invite ...", "... that are inviting ...", or maybe "... who have been inviting ...", or to mean "Did you hear how many men she has managed to get to invite her out for dates?".
> If I had to guess about the speaker's intent, I would say the two most likely meanings are the first "... that invite ..." and the last "... managed to get to invite ...", each with about 50% probability.
> This ambiguity cannot be resolved without context.



That's a brilliant reply.

So I guess context is the key to telling what a participial phrase's real meaning , right?


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> That's a brilliant reply.
> 
> So I guess context is the key to telling what a participial phrase's real meaning , right?


Yes, but we do say a lot of ambiguous things without worrying about it.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> I would say the two most likely meanings are the first "... that invite ..."



But why do we use Simple Present Tense *"*... *that invite* ...*"* here?

That means the men habitually invite her out, and maybe the number of the men doesn't increase? Because if she keeps being invited, we have to use Present Progressive Tense *"*... *that are inviting* ...*"*, right?


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> But why do we use Simple Present Tense *"*... *that invite* ...*"* here?
> 
> That means the men habitually invite her out, and maybe the number of the men doesn't increase? Because if she keeps being invited, we have to use Present Progressive Tense *"*... *that are inviting* ...*"*, right?


Neither one says much about the men's habits. "Are inviting" differs from "invite" in this context only in that it adds the idea that while she "has" them they do not stop inviting, or that the stream of men, each of whom may invite only once, does not stop during the time in question.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Neither one says much about the men's habits. "Are inviting" differs from "invite" in this context only in that it adds the idea that while she "has" them they do not stop inviting, or that the stream of men, each of whom may invite only once, does not stop during the time in question.



Now I understand the meaning of Present Progressive Tense in this participial phrase.

But still, why do we use the Simple Present Tense?

Thanks.


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> But still, why do we use the Simple Present Tense?


Why not?


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Why not?



I mean, since inviting that girl is not the men's habit, then what is the meaning that the Simple Present Tense *"*... *that invite* ...*"*  represents here?


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## Cagey

It's difficult to answer this question because the simple present is the most ordinary tense to use.  It names the action without commenting on its frequency.  We would have to have a special reason to use something else.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Without any context, there is no reason to hypothesize a change from present tense "has" to past tense "was" or "invited"



That means the possibles of using Simple Past Tense and Past Progressive Tense in this case are rarely found?






Cagey said:


> We would have to have a special reason to use something else.



What does that mean?


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> That means the possibles of using Simple Past Tense and Past Progressive Tense in this case are rarely found?


There is no tense in the participle "waiting" and no adverbial like "yesterday" or "today" or "tomorrow" in the sentence. We even have to guess the tense of "Do"/"did" and "has got"/"got" based on the context. My guess is "Do you know ... I've got ...."

(I would expect at least a "d" sound in front of "you know" if "did you know" were meant, and between "Do you know" and "waiting" I expect a present tense unless context suggests otherwise: "Got" in place of "have got" is slang but very commonly used throughout the English speaking world.)

The barber is suggesting multiple customers in line for haircuts. The context tells us they are not physically queued at the barbershop, but the barber is suggesting he must serve them first.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> The context tells us they are not physically queued at the barbershop



The "they" means the barber and the person who's talking to barber?



And yeah.. I think this kind of participle phrases needs contexts to express it well, or people who read/hear about these sentences need to guess the tenses they use, right?



Finally, how about another sentence from #13, *"Do you see how many books I have sitting on that shelf?" *?

We don't know the context, but how would you explain the participle phrase "..._*how many books I have sitting on*..._" here?

Maybe "..._*how many books I have that are sitting on*..._" ,"..._*how many books I have that sit on*..._" ?


Thanks!


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## bennymix

Salute to Forero!--9 posts on the matters of this thread.  11 posts by all others combined.   Perhaps the thread should be titled, "Everything you ever wanted to know about participial phrases and present tenses."


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## RomanPinsEveryone

bennymix said:


> Salute to Forero!--9 posts on the matters of this thread.  11 posts by all others combined.   Perhaps the thread should be titled, "Everything you ever wanted to know about participial phrases and present tenses."



Yeah but I can't change the title you know.


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> The "they" means the barber and the person who's talking to barber?


No, the waiting customers.





> And yeah.. I think this kind of participle phrases needs contexts to express it well, or people who read/hear about these sentences need to guess the tenses they use, right?


No. Participles do not use tense.





> Finally, how about another sentence from #13, *"Do you see how many books I have sitting on that shelf?" *?
> 
> We don't know the context, but how would you explain the participle phrase "..._*how many books I have sitting on*..._" here?
> 
> Maybe "..._*how many books I have that are sitting on*..._" ,"..._*how many books I have that sit on*..._" ?
> 
> Thanks!


Neither, really. The participle "sitting on that shelf" does not have tense, or aspect, or mood, and it does not need to be turned into a relative clause.

In fact, you can leave out the word "sitting" from this sentence without changing the timing of anything.


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## Truffula

Was there any other dialogue in the video? It might be helpful if we had a couple sentences either before or after this one to help with context.

What I have so far is, the shop was empty.  

I think the general answer is that you can't correctly rephrase the sentence to have "wait" put in a specific tense instead of an -ing form - keeping the meaning constant - without more context.  Which has been fully stated.

The impression I get from the bare -ing form as used in "how many customers I got waiting on me" is that the number is impressive somehow.  The same is true of the other examples that reference inviting on dates and books sitting on a shelf.  It seems as though the number must be a relatively large number compared to the typical expected number before the statement was uttered.  

So:  more customers are waiting than the speaker thought the listener expected; more date invitations are being received than the speaker thought the listener expected; more books are on the shelf than... and so on.


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## kajal022

Is the sentence telling us that the speaker had such a lot of clients to wait on?


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Truffula said:


> Was there any other dialogue in the video? It might be helpful if we had a couple sentences either before or after this one to help with context.



Well, the forum doesn't allow videos to be posted, if you want to know more about the context, I would give you the video link.






Forero said:


> Neither, really. The participle "sitting on that shelf" does not have tense, or aspect, or mood, and it does not need to be turned into a relative clause.



Your answer on #23 turned the Participial phrase into some relative clauses, because you considered that I understood relative clauses more than Participial phrases, but actually,
Participial phrase is not relative clause, they could not mean the same or express the same meaning, you just tried to express it with relative clauses to make the meaning close to the Participial phrase, right?


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## Truffula

You don't have to give us the video link, most of us don't want to watch it. 

You can transcribe the previous and/or following lines of dialogue.  You can describe the scenario in the video in more detail.


--

edit: Well, I found what may be a transcript of what you were watching.  It's a serious pain to read, let me tell you.  Anyway, from this it looks like this situation is one where they are ostensibly talking about "cheating on your barber" but it's being done in the style as if it was cheating on a romantic partner.

So, the barber suspects the customer went to some other barber, thinks he spots someone else's hair on the customer.  Asks if he can smell the customer.  A buzzer sounds - he smelled something suspicious.  Now the customer is acting all guilty, apologizing, saying things like "you're the best barber, I promise" and the barber is recriminating like "when you were broke" he gave free haircuts or credit, "but then I see you with somebody else who pushed your hairline back to the 70s!"  Anyway, it seems to be meant humorously in that manner.  Things a barber would say if barbers felt like their customers going to someone else was like romantic partners cheating on them.  So this line about customers waiting on them is metaphorically like them saying they could get all kinds of other romantic partners but they were spending time on this one.  It's not meant to be a realistic depiction of how a barber actually would express a realistic situation, I think.


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> Your answer on #23 turned the Participial phrase into some relative clauses, because you considered that I understood relative clauses more than Participial phrases, but actually,
> Participial phrase is not relative clause, they could not mean the same or express the same meaning, you just tried to express it with relative clauses to make the meaning close to the Participial phrase, right?


Right.

When I use a participial phrase, I do not start with a relative clause in my mind and then "compress" it. If someone does not understand my participial phrase, I might use other constructions to restate the same meaning, or a "close enough" other meaning.

A relative clause is a construction that is sometimes useful for this purpose.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> or that the stream of men, each of whom may invite only once, does not stop during the time in question.



I'm reviewing this thread, and I don't know what this line means now.

Does it mean that every man may invite her only once, and then, the amount of the men doesn't stop rising ?


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> Forero said:
> 
> 
> 
> or that the stream of men, each of whom may invite only once, does not stop during the time in question.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm reviewing this thread, and I don't know what this line means now.
> 
> Does it mean that every man may invite her only once, and then, the *number of* men doesn't stop rising ?
Click to expand...

Yes, if you mean the number of men who have invited her out for dates.

It is really the number of invitations, not necessarily the number of men making them, that increases throughout the time interval in question. And once that time interval ends, the invitations may stop.


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## RomanPinsEveryone

Forero said:


> Yes, if you mean the number of men who have invited her out for dates.
> It is really the number of invitations, not necessarily the number of men making them, that increases throughout the time interval in question. And once that time interval ends, the invitations may stop.




Last question of this thread.

If somebody actually says "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*" , or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_". Will the native English speakers find it weird and nonsensical ?

I mean I showed these two sentences to my teachers, they thought the sentences were clumsy and incorrect.


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## Keith Bradford

All six sentences are possible_*.  *_Two are excellent:
*
Did you hear how many men she has inviting her out for dates?*
_*Did you hear how many men she has who invite her out for dates?*_

Three are perfectly good:*

Did you hear how many men she has who are inviting her out for dates?
Did you hear how many men she has that are inviting her out for dates?*
_*Did you hear how many men she has that invite her out for dates?*_

One is clumsy:
_*
Did you hear how many men she has invite her out for dates?*_


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## Forero

RomanPinsEveryone said:


> Last question of this thread.
> 
> If somebody actually says "*Did you hear how many men she has who/that are inviting her out for dates?*" , or "_*Did you hear how many men she has who/that invite her out for dates?*_". Will the native English speakers find it weird and nonsensical ?
> 
> I mean I showed these two sentences to my teachers, they thought the sentences were clumsy and incorrect.


Not weird, not nonsensical, not incorrect, but certainly clumsy if you mean "men she has inviting her out for dates".


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