2

In US, when people work together, they may look for a colleague or any person to tell something or for any other reason, asking other collegues/people such a question:

Have you seen Michael?

or

Did you see Michael?

Which is considered right if the question refers to an activity (in our case "see") during a day and not the past in general?

StoneyB on hiatus
  • 175,127
  • 14
  • 260
  • 461
Voopj
  • 21
  • 1
  • 4
  • 3
    If you'd like to delete your own question, please use the delete button instead of vandalizing it. –  Jun 27 '15 at 23:42

1 Answers1

1

They have similar meanings. "Have you seen Michael" is more generally useful.

"I was just in the break room eating lunch"

"Did you see Michael (in the break room)?"

vs.

"Have you seen Michael (anywhere, anytime, within reason)?"

"Yes, he's in the break room", "He was in the sales meeting this morning", "I saw him yesterday, I don't know if he's in today", "I haven't seen him all week".

TessellatingHeckler
  • 494
  • 2
  • 6