BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOLLOWING the October 10 publication of an article headlined “On The Spot - Unoccupied, but occupying neighbours’ thoughts”, the police issued a press release yesterday (Oct. 12) to dispel rumours on a dead body found in an unoccupied building two weeks ago.
“The Police wish to dispel rumours circulating, that a wanted fugitive and dead body were found in an unoccupied building two weeks ago, as no such discoveries were made in the recent past. This rumour began when readers misinterpreted an article on SKNVibes and began calling into radio call-in programs,” the release reads.
This misinterpretation by some of our readers arose from this sentence: “Two weeks ago, SKNVibes conducted an investigation and found that law enforcement agencies have recovered a ‘Wanted’ fugitive and a dead body in two unoccupied buildings.”
According to the Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, present perfect tense describes an action that happened at an indefinite time in the past.
That is why the writer chose to use “have recovered”, which is the present perfect tense, rather than “recovered”, which is the same simple past tense as “conducted” and “found”. The verbs “conducted” and “found” relate to the investigation that SKNVibes did “two weeks ago”, but “have recovered” relates to the distant past.
SKNVibes would therefore like to assure that the writer’s aim is to keep readership informed and not to mislead.
Below is the related article.
