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Can I say "I told you he is going to the book club" when he has already gone there by now; or is it necessary to back-shift it to past i.e. "I told you he was going to the book club".

So will I be understood perfectly if I used the "is going" version (not back=shifting it). This situation seems new to me. So I thought I'd ask that: Does it seem difficult to understand for the other person if we do not back-shift to past??. And is it gramaticaly correct??

F.E.
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  • There is a tag "backshifting" that might interest you. :) – F.E. May 18 '14 at 21:52
  • Can't seem to understand my question in the above “He didn't know where New Jersey was” heading there. So can anyone answer my above question please. –  May 19 '14 at 03:01
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    Yes, both versions are grammatical. The emphasis is slightly different in the two versions. I'm assuming that the guy has already *left* to go to the book club. One version could be used to emphasize the fact that you had already told the addressee something, the other version could be used to emphasize the fact that the guy's destination is the book club. The backshifted version ("was") might be considered the default for your sentence, imo, but that's just my opinion. Me, I might use the non-backshifted version ("is") if there's some dispute as to where the guy is supposedly going. – F.E. May 19 '14 at 04:14

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