War on Chinglish (11)

been and gone It's a curious little quirk of English that we use the Present Perfect tense of 'be' rather 'go' to talk about whether we have ever had the experience of visiting a place.  Hence: He has been to New York several times. He has been to the opera twice this year. We haven't been to the seaside since we were children. This enables us to create a useful distinction whereby the Present Perfect of 'go' is only used for trips which are still in progress. He has been to the doctor's means he has finished his consultation and come back with his prescription for medicine.  He has gone to the doctor's means he is still absent from work, might still be sitting in the doctor's waiting room for his appointment. He has been to Paris means he had a holiday or a business trip there once, some time in the past.  He has gone to Paris means he is there NOW (or is on his way there). The Chinese usually seem to have a complete blindspot about this usage.  If they pick up on it at all, they tend to start thinking that 'be' can be used interchangeably with 'go'. In the recording studio this morning we had an instance where somebody's absence from the office was explained with the phrase:  She's just been out for a little while. That would have been fine, if this lady were now back; but the context made it fairly obvious that she was still supposed to be out of the office.  Clearly what was meant was She's just gone out for a little while. It occurred to me (so conscientious am I in my efforts to avoid having to re-write anything) that the script as written could possibly have been interpreted to mean  She has only recently announced that she is a lesbian. But I very much doubt if a Chinese educational publisher would be addressing topics like that....