• Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    7 months ago

    If I say “my brother is traveling to France,” that doesn’t mean “at some point in the future, my brother will travel to France.”

    At least I’ve never heard anyone use “is” followed by an action that way.

    • purplexed@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s very clunky in its usage. Which isn’t good English, but neither is the title, so I’m over it.

    • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Perhaps you’re not a native speaker, but it absolutely is used that way in real life. My brother is travelling to France in August, for example.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        7 months ago

        So you mean if you add a qualifier, that changes the meaning?

        Are you saying that as he goes to France in August, you would never say “my brother is traveling to France?”

        And you still haven’t answered me about The Wizard of Oz and Fargo.

        • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Because I do not care for weird analogies.

          You added an example, I made it make clearer sense for you, someone who had never heard of Present Continuous for plans in their lives, apparently.

          I’m waking up early tomorrow, so I’m done.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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            7 months ago

            So you wouldn’t say “my brother is traveling to France” while he’s on the plane? What do you say? “My brother is will be were traveling to France?”

            And you claimed you could infer an author’s intent from a title. Therefore you can tell me that you knew for a fact before seeing or hearing about the movie Fargo just from the title alone that only a few seconds of the film took place in Fargo. Correct or not?