I heard Jim say...

[cyy12345]

Dear all,

As I was reading on the Internet today, I noticed this sentence from a relatively trust-worthy source:

"I heard Jim say he was teaching only a piano class".

The sentence sounded very awkward to my ears.. But as a non-native speaker, I would like to double check with you guys here to make sure I did not miss anything before pronouncing the construction of the sentence a mistake..

1) Shouldn't the word "say" be replaced with "saying"? I don't see why the author should use "say" here unless he or she meant to use the "say" word as a noun (a noun usage in this case I find quite strange...)?

2) Also, I think the construction "I heard.." does not necessitate the use of "he was.." in spite that the use of past continuous is grammatically OK. Is that correct?

Thanks a lot for your inputs!

[RonPurewal]

a relatively trust-worthy source

...yet you don't name the source.

[cyy12345]

a relatively trust-worthy source

...yet you don't name the source.

Thanks, Ron. I take that as a confirmation of my judgement!

[RonPurewal]

you lost me there. but, we can't discuss items from unnamed sources.