They set unbelievably hard tasks to do, to see which one of us got the best deal. - Top Gear (TV show)
I don't understand; what is "got" doing in present tense? Or am I misunderstanding the sentence?
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anongoodnurse
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bartolo-otrit
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6You might want to check out [ell.se], where no one ever needs to apologize for their English. :^) – J.R. Dec 17 '13 at 19:08
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Got is past tense and it’s perfectly grammatical. That’s because set is also past tense, although, because it’s the same as the present tense, it doesn’t show as such.
Imagine that the verb was instead gave, which is different from the present tense:
They gave us unbelievably hard tasks to do to see which one of us ____ the best deal.
The only conventionally grammatical way to fill the gap is with got.
Barrie England
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