Grammar Tip! present perfect continuous

In the present perfect continuous, we talk about an action that has continued over a period until NOW. So, for instance, we can say:

I have been sitting here for ages waiting for the bank manager to phone. (This could mean that I'm going to stop sitting here now, but not necessarily.)

We could say...

I've been sitting here for ages waiting for the bank manager to phone.  I hope I won't have to wait much longer.

Your friend comes into your apartment and their eyes are red and sore. You say... You've been playing too many computer games!

Sometimes we use this verb form with recently and lately:

I've been having problems with my neighbor lately.

Lately he's been shouting insults at me whenever I've seen him.

I've been having really bad headaches recently means I have had a number of headaches.

I've had a really bad headache means that I have had one headache.

Since and for are often used with the present perfect continuous.

 I've been working on my business plan for months now.

I have been running my business for about three years now...

The present perfect continuous looks at the activity in progress, while the present perfect simple looks at the result.

I've been finishing my business plan. (In this sentence it is not clear whether the action is finished.)

I've finished my business plan. What do you think? (In this sentence, it is clear that the action has finished.)

It may depend on how the speaker sees the situation: i.e. whether or not they want to focus on the action going on, or the result.

State verbs (e.g. verbs like know, love, like, own and want) do not usually take the continuous:

  I have loved working with clothes all my life. NOT I have been loving working with clothes all my life.

In a few cases, the meaning is the same whether you use the Simple or the Continuous:

 I've studied here for two years means exactly the same as...I've been studying here for two years.

We often choose to use the present perfect continuous in this situation.

Article for November 30th

by Paul Krugman

Devaluing History

Menzie Chinn goes after Paul Ryan’s challenge: “Name me a nation in history that has prospered by devaluing its currency.” But why go back to the 1930s?

How about:

-Britain, which recovered strongly from its early 90s doldrums after it devalued the pound against the mark in 1992. (At the time, some wags suggested putting a statue of George Soros in Trafalgar Square.)

- Sweden, which recovered from its early 90s banking crisis with an export boom, driven by a devalued kronor.

- South Korea, which roared back from the 1997-1998 crisis with an export boom, driven by a depreciated won.

- Argentina, which roared back from its 2002 crisis with an export boom, driven by a depreciated peso.

And more. The truth is that every recovery from financial crisis I know of since World War II was driven by currency depreciation. In fact, that’s the biggest reason for pessimism now: because of the global scope of this crisis, the usual exit is blocked.

Now, I’m sure that the goldbugs will come up with ways to explain away all of these events. But at that point we’re not learning from history; on the face of it, history seems to suggest many cases of countries prospering through devaluation.

So what’s going on with Ryan? First, it’s a good bet that he doesn’t actually know much about monetary history. Beyond that, though, what you often see among hard-money types is a sort of Lives of the Saints approach to history: they’ve got their iconic examples (Weimar Germany! Zimbabwe!) which they pull out on every occasion, while remaining utterly ignorant of all the examples that go the other way.

And no, it’s not symmetric: people like me have heard about hyperinflation, while people like Ryan apparently have never heard about post-crisis Korea or Argentina.

Article for November 30th

Ottawa told to brace for WikiLeaks release

  View larger image

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks in front of NGO's delegates during a NGO conference at the European headquarters of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Nov. 5, 2010. (AP / Salvatore Di Nolfi, Keystone)

View larger image President Barack Obama is greeted by David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, right, upon his arrival at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Friday, June 25, 2010, for the G8 and G20 Summit. (AP / Carolyn Kaster)

Updated: Thu Nov. 25 2010 18:17:25

CTV.ca News Staff

Washington has notified Ottawa that the WikiLeaks secret-spilling website is about to release some sensitive U.S. diplomatic files that could damage U.S. relations with allies around the world.

U.S. officials say the documents could be released this weekend or early next week. They say the internal documents may contain accounts of compromising conversations with political dissidents and friendly politicians and could result in the expulsion of U.S. diplomats from foreign postings.

Walter Dorn, an associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, said the leaked documents could "provide a window into the diplomatic exchanges with Canada and a frank view of how Canadian officials are viewed by the U.S. ambassador and by officials in the U.S. embassy.

They may also "show us how the U.S. tried to keep Canada in Afghanistan," Dorn added.

American officials are concerned that details about certain sensitive programs could be exposed, or details about surveillance at U.S. diplomatic compounds abroad.

The U.S. ambassador to Canada David Jacobson has already phoned Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon to inform him of the matter, the Foreign Affairs department says.

Foreign Affairs spokesperson Melissa Lantsman tells The Canadian Press the Canadian Embassy in Washington is "currently engaging" with the U.S. State Department on the matter.

The State Department said Wednesday that it had begun notifying foreign governments that WikiLeaks is preparing to release sensitive U.S. diplomatic files that could damage U.S. relations with friends and allies across the globe.

"These revelations are harmful to the United States and our interests," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "They are going to create tension in relationships between our diplomats and our friends around the world."

WikiLeaks itself has not said what will be contained in its coming release. On its Twitter feed earlier this week, the website said its next release would be "seven times larger" than the 400,000 Pentagon reports related to the Iraq war that it made public in October.

Crowley said the State Department "has known all along" that WikiLeaks possesses classified State Department documents.

He said the State Department does not know which files will be released so it was not possible to predict the impact of their release.

"We wish this would not happen, but we are obviously prepared for the possibility that it will," he added.

It's possible the documents with reveal the kinds of pressure the administration of President Barack Obama has put on various countries to accept the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Canadian detainee Omar Khadr was the subject of discussions last month between Cannon and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Canada has long resisted repatriating Khadr, the only western detainee remaining at Guantanamo Bay. That position is thought to have caused tensions between the two countries.

The posting will mark WikiLeaks' third mass release of classified documents after it published 77,000 secret U.S. files on the Afghan conflict in July.