Grammar – Any Issues with the Sentence ‘Who Watched It?’

grammaticality-in-contextpast-simplepresent-perfect

When asking a group of people about whether or not they've seen a certain movie, are there any arguments against using the following sentence:

"Who watched it?"

Using the past simple instead of the present perfect ("Who has watched it?" or "Who has seen it?") seems a bit incorrect, but I cannot explain why. When I try to google for examples, it seems like the past simple is commonly used by native speakers in this case.

Best Answer

The perfect from "Who has watched it?" would be normal. You are not concerned with the time when it was watched, only the the whether they now have the experience of seeing the film.

That doesn't make the past tense wrong. If you had already established that you were talking about a particular time in the past, you might choose the past tense:

Okay students, we're going to watch a film today and analyse the themes. The film is Jaws. Now, who has seen this film?

Okay students. Did you have a good weekend? I watched Jaws on TV on Saturday. How about you? Who saw this film?

American speakers are more likely to use past simple instead of perfect tense. British speakers are more likely to use perfect.

Related Topic