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>But how about street talk? Are all people really using the "I'm smoking a cigarette" sentence and do they never say "I smoke a cigarette"? I'm not referring here to formal speech, but to street talk. How about...
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>"I was smoking a cigarette."
>"I smoked a cigarette."
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We would use the first ( past tense progressive ) to indication what we were doing when something else happened. "I was smoking a cigarette when the teacher caught me."
We use the second to indicate past completed action
"What did you do outside?"
"I smoked a cigarette."
If someone says "What were you doing ( while you were ) outside?"
"I was smoking a cigarette ( while I was outside )" is correct as the duration is implied.
HTH
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
