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I cannot find the thread in which it is written that

past tense has a boundary and present perfect has no its boundaries.

It is not the title, it is a part of the explanation.

Please help me find the thread.

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    The search facilities of Stack Exchange are incredibly poor. Often I find a question by keying in a title in "New question" and then looking at the "possible dupe" list -- for some reason that search works better. For using Google it would be helpful if they provided an alternate "Search Google" button, vs having to key in the obscure site info manually.
    – Hot Licks
    Nov 3, 2016 at 12:30
  • @HotLicks - I like your idea. In the meantime, workaround: You can add "Search Site" to your list of search engines, and then you type in your phrase in that little box at the top of your browser, above the bookmarks, and click on the little magnifying glass.
    – aparente001
    Nov 12, 2016 at 21:11
  • @aparente001 - So how do you manipulate your "list of search engines"?
    – Hot Licks
    Nov 12, 2016 at 21:57
  • @HotLicks - Apparently I forgot I use an add-on for that. I'm not sure if this is necessary -- but I do have an add-on active with a suggestive name. addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/search-site
    – aparente001
    Nov 12, 2016 at 22:03
  • @aparente001 - OK, you're talking about Mozilla search, not StackExchange search.
    – Hot Licks
    Nov 12, 2016 at 22:13
  • @HotLicks - Yes. It's a workaround. I couldn't remember what the little box at the top of the browser, above the bookmarks, is called. I use that box to do "search on site" frequently for lots of sites. I don't think I've used it for SE yet, though.
    – aparente001
    Nov 13, 2016 at 2:51

1 Answer 1

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The best way to search is to use Google, rather than the site search in the top-right corner. When using Google, you need to specify the site you want the results to come from, using the site: parameter. The following is a suitable search, although it should all be on one line and entered as a single string into the search box:

past tense has a boundary and present perfect has no its boundaries. site:english.stackexchange.com

That currently gets you four results, three for this question (which is available by various routes), and one which might be the post you want: Habitual activities within a limited period of time

If you know the exact phrase you're looking for, enclose that in quotation marks:

"past tense has a boundary" site:english.stackexchange.com

That won't find what you're looking for if the exact phrase doesn't appear in the post.

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  • Nice! Sadly this doesn't work for comments.
    – Mitch
    Nov 2, 2016 at 12:50
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    @Mitch I use it for comments all the time.
    – tchrist Mod
    Nov 2, 2016 at 13:36
  • @tchrist What? Oh. Maybe I was thinking of the SE search then.
    – Mitch
    Nov 3, 2016 at 1:12
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    I can't get Google to work for comments. It only indexes real posts. Example Google search for @tchrist's comment above
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Nov 3, 2016 at 10:22
  • @AndrewLeach Possibly an indexing/caching problem. I can find older comments.
    – Laurel Mod
    Nov 4, 2016 at 17:07

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