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Which of these sentences is correct?

You mentioned having been in a hospital last year.

You mentioned being in a hospital last year.

Dan Bron
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Shehla Meherremova
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  • Edwin, you edited (unintentionally) in a way that made my answer no longer correct, because you changed "in a hospital" to "in hospital". Since the original included the determiner before "hospital" in both examples, shouldn't your edit as well? (In editing my answer—which I must do regardless—I just want to edit it to reflect the actual question as edited.) The system won't let me make such a small edit as to just add "a" before both instances of "hospital". – Trey Apr 02 '17 at 21:44
  • @Trey I put "a" before each "hospital". – Dan Bron Apr 02 '17 at 21:55
  • @DanBron Thanks! What privilege gives you the ability to make such small edits? Searching the help docs, I can't find it. – Trey Apr 02 '17 at 21:58
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    @Trey It's called edit questions and answers and means I can make arbitrary edits which are applied immediately, without needing review. You will earn it at 2,000 rep, which seems like a lot, but happens faster than you'd expect. – Dan Bron Apr 02 '17 at 22:04
  • @Trey The standard of grammar in the original indicated that the question was unsuitable as it stood for ELU. I assumed that 'being in hospital' was far more likely to be intended than 'being in a hospital' and edited accordingly. The question is not about article usage or not in set phrases like 'in hospital' / 'at work' / 'at the doctor's' / 'at the infirmary' (which has been covered here before) but about the choice of 'being' or 'having been'. // The question about the choice here between 'having been' and 'being' is also quite probably a (difficult-to-find) duplicate. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '17 at 22:54
  • @EdwinAshworth "being in hospital" is grammatically incorrect in American English. While we don't enforce any particular local usage as more correct than another, my understanding was that unless differences between locales is the point of the question, we're supposed to answer based on the locale used in the question. So I answered with American English usage, since that was what was in the examples. Is my understanding incorrect? – Trey Apr 02 '17 at 22:55
  • @Trey I didn't realise 'I'm really confused.Please explain me which one ic correct following sentences You mentioned having been in a hospital last year or You mentioned being a hospital last year Thanks in advance' was American English. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '17 at 23:02
  • @EdwinAshworth You're right; it's hard to be certain. But "a hospital", with the determiner, was used in each. If the original uncorrected question were "...having been in hospital last year or... being hospital last year", I would have answered assuming the examples exactly as you edited them. I answered assuming that someone who had rights to make the edit would do so with the minimal editing required, leaving the first example alone since it already conformed to US English, not that both would be changed to conform to UK English. – Trey Apr 02 '17 at 23:13
  • @Trey I'd guess that 'being in the hospital' is the normal way people in the US say what people in the UK usually express as 'being in hospital'. In any case, I don't see how altering the prepositional phrase really affects the question, which is about choosing between 'having been [in ...]' and 'being [in ...]' . // The question was so ungrammatical overall that it really needed closing. – Edwin Ashworth 7 mins ago – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '17 at 23:24
  • @EdwinAshworth There's actually a difference: you say "being in the hospital" when you're expressing a state, like being "in a funk". For example, if you were transferred several times, you would still say "I was in the hospital" but not "I was in a hospital" or "I was in hospitals". You say "being in a hospital" when you're focusing on the hospital rather than the hospitalization. "I was in a hospital, and it was a terrible one". So is "I was in hospital, and it was a terrible one" or "I was in hospital, and it was a terrible experience"—or are both—correct in UK English? – Trey Apr 02 '17 at 23:25
  • The difference mirrors that in the normal UK usage. 'Being in hospital' for hospitalisation; 'being in a hospital / school / house / hotel ...' when specifying location. So you're corroborating my first sentence in the previous comment. Thus: Only the second. The first would be rendered "I was in a hospital, and it was a terrible one" or "I was in hospital, and the hospital I was in was a terrible one". // So your answer ('being in a hospital') references location both in the US and UK, and, I'd argue, is the far less likely interpretation of OP's examples. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '17 at 23:33
  • @Dan Bron Balance of probabilities, your re-insertion of the indefinite article/s is based on a wrong assumption. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '17 at 23:34
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    @EdwinAshworth They were in the OP's original post, and that's enough for me. The more non-cosmetic changes we introduce to a post, the higher the risk we put words in OP's mouth. Plus, changing it from its original formulation breaks answers based on that formulation. It's not backwards-compatible. – Dan Bron Apr 02 '17 at 23:36

1 Answers1

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There's a very subtle difference between

  1. You mentioned having been in a hospital last year.

vs.

  1. You mentioned being in a hospital last year.

The two are both correct and mean almost exactly the same thing. #1 is a "past perfect" while #2 is "imperfective" — these are differences in aspect. Consider what happens when you add the word since to each of these (which would change the meaning to include current hospitalization):

  1. You mentioned having been in a hospital since last year.

  2. You mentioned being in a hospital since last year.

#3 would connote duration and would focus on the continuing nature of the hospitalization. #4 would connote ongoing activity and would focus on the habitual state of hospitalization.

These are very fuzzy distinctions, as you can see, so the two sentences #1 and #2 are functionally nearly identical.

In context, however, #1 would more fluently introduce a topic post-hospitalization, while #2 would more fluently introduce a topic about the hospitalization. For instance:

  1. You mentioned having been in a hospital last year. Why were you hospitalized?

  2. You mentioned being in a hospital last year. Were the nurses pleasant?

You could swap the second sentences of each, but they're more comfortable being introduced as above rather than

*7. You mentioned having been in a hospital last year. Were the nurses pleasant?

*8. You mentioned being in a hospital last year. Why were you hospitalized?

There's a difference, but it's an extraordinarily slight distinction. The sentences are basically interchangeable.

Trey
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