Choose carefully between simple past and past progressive:
Mark was a senator who was seeking reelection. The passage described Mark’s educational background, and reported some things he did while he was in office, including an affair with an assistant and hush money from a prominent constituent. Some participants read a sentence about actions framed with past progressive (was VERB+ing): "Last year, Mark was having an affair with his assistant and was taking money from a prominent constituent." Others read a sentence about actions framed with simple past (VERB+ed): "Last year, Mark had an affair with his assistant and took money from a prominent constituent." Everything else was the same.
After the participants read the passage about Mark Johnson, they answered questions. In analyzing their responses, we discovered differences. Those who read the phrases "having an affair" and "accepting hush money" were quite confident that the Senator would not be reelected. In contrast, people who read the phrases "had an affair," and "accepted hush money" were less confident. What’s more, when queried about how much hush money they thought could be involved, those who read about "accepting hush money" gave reliably higher dollar estimates than people who read that Mark "accepted hush money."
From these results, we concluded that information framed with past progressive caused people to reflect more on the action details in a given time period than did information framed with simple past.
From American Scientist, "Framing Political Messages with Grammar and Metaphor."
HT: The Dish
