According to the dictionary, ‘is’ and ‘was’ are respectively a present and past tense singular of the word ‘be’. The definition of the word ‘be’ (or at least, the one I find relevant here), is “having the state, quality, identity, nature, role, etc., specified”. This seems like a significantly more important part of the sentence to be emphasizing here.
On the moon he is the alien.
As opposed to who? I still just can’t understand why you would emphasize ‘he’, when there are no other subjects that we could be talking about. Like, obviously we’re talking about Neil, so why would you put emphasis on it? On the other hand, the fact that he actually ‘is/was’ an alien is pretty surprising to think about and thus the important bit. That is to say, it makes more sense to emphasize the fact that he is an alien, and not the fact that Neil is the subject.
I agree that we seem to use language differently, and it’s pretty interesting to see. Both of us have been upvoted by at least one or two other people as well, so it seems some people agree with you and some with me despite our completely different takes, so I don’t think either of us are really wrong.
According to the dictionary, ‘is’ and ‘was’ are respectively a present and past tense singular of the word ‘be’. The definition of the word ‘be’ (or at least, the one I find relevant here), is “having the state, quality, identity, nature, role, etc., specified”. This seems like a significantly more important part of the sentence to be emphasizing here.
As opposed to who? I still just can’t understand why you would emphasize ‘he’, when there are no other subjects that we could be talking about. Like, obviously we’re talking about Neil, so why would you put emphasis on it? On the other hand, the fact that he actually ‘is/was’ an alien is pretty surprising to think about and thus the important bit. That is to say, it makes more sense to emphasize the fact that he is an alien, and not the fact that Neil is the subject.
I think we just use/understand language differently?
If there is nobody else, then he is no alien to anyone anyway?
I agree that we seem to use language differently, and it’s pretty interesting to see. Both of us have been upvoted by at least one or two other people as well, so it seems some people agree with you and some with me despite our completely different takes, so I don’t think either of us are really wrong.