The scenario is this: I am saying this at my home to my friend but when I thought about that, I was at a bar.
Example 1
That was the time I knew I should go back home.
Example 2
That was the time I knew I should come back home.
Asked
Active
Viewed 48 times
2
vincentlin
- 2,217
- 2
- 21
- 35
-
3Either works, for the reasons described below. – the-baby-is-you Feb 24 '23 at 14:59
-
Does this answer your question? I’d rather come or go with you – Lambie Nov 27 '23 at 17:07
-
Please note: I received five downvotes which are all mistaken. Please read it carefully. If you are at home when you say it, I would use: come back home. [spoken at home to a friend who is present: "What did you think John?" Answer: "I thought I should come back here, come home." – Lambie Nov 27 '23 at 17:09
-
On a separate issue, That was when I knew ... would refer to a moment whereas That was the time I knew ... would refer to an occasion. – TimR Mar 26 '24 at 18:44
-
There's not enough context to decide between go and come. – TimR Mar 26 '24 at 18:46
1 Answers
0
I would use 'go', since the speaker is talking about what he knew then, when he wasn't at home.
It's basically the same principle as the "backshifting" in He told me what his name was, which we do because the containing utterance establishes the temporal "frame of reference" as being in the past.
By the same token, in OP's example, the locative frame of reference (at the time) was the bar, not "home". Standard use of come / go home is governed by the current frame of reference, which in this context comes from the utterance itself, not the speaker1.
Here's a relevant usage example from Google Books...
...I remembered that the voices said I should go home. So here I am.
Here are several more examples (interleaved with some irrelevant text matches).
1 Note that a homesick person says I want to go home when talking to someone else - unless the person he's talking to is at the speaker's home (on the telephone, for example), in which case the homesick person says I want to come home. I point this out to show that it's not necessarily the speaker's location that counts.
FumbleFingers
- 70,966
- 4
- 97
- 196
-
I agree with this answer. Go sounds much more natural, for the reasons you describe. – stangdon Feb 24 '23 at 15:54
-
I wasn't quite being honest with my first sentence above. If Michael's (now deleted) answer hadn't already been posted I'd have probably just said *both versions are fine - it depends how you look at it*. (The whole point of me "mirroring" Michael's answer was to give that implication in a way that I thought might be mildly amusing, but it seems to have fallen a bit flat! :) – FumbleFingers Feb 24 '23 at 15:59
-
...Although speaker is *at* home, it could make a world of difference if he's *on the phone* talking to his friend (as opposed to the friend being there in person, having come to visit his homecoming mate! :) – FumbleFingers Feb 24 '23 at 16:02
-
[spoken at John's home to a friend who is present:] "What did you think John?" Answer: "I thought I should come back here, come home." – Lambie Nov 27 '23 at 18:08