fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2585 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2585 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Monster High]

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[Bryan Fuller, John Green]

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[Star Trek: The Next Generation]

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[Pretty Little Liars]

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[Breaking Bad]

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[Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey]

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08.

[Reign]

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09.

[Leviathan: the last day of the decade]

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[Sherlock Holmes]

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[Steam]

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Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A question to native English speakers. Should I use past perfect whenever I'm talking about some past event in relation to some other event that took place after that? Like, is it mandatory or optional? Can I say something like "ten years ago I was sure that [a thing happened before that]"? Or do I say "ten years ago I was sure [a thing had happened before that"?

Thank you.

In the example you have given, which to use depends on the context of the following sentence.

For instance, foregoing the past perfect works if you are speaking in a narrative fashion and intend to follow it with a sentence that clarifies your current knowledge of the situation.

ex. "Ten years ago I was sure my father was in Las Vegas on March 14th, 1948. Today I know that on that day he was in Mali on a top secret government assignment."

However, if you forego the past perfect and don't intend to include an addendum or any clarification of your point, it changes the meaning of the sentence.

ex. "Ten years ago I was sure that cats had ruled the earth." vs. "Ten years ago I was sure cats ruled the earth."

In the first sentence, you are sure that at some point in history, cats were the dominant species. In the second sentence, you are under the impression that cats were ruling the earth ten years ago.

Hope this helps.

Not AYRT - this is really confusing because you leave out "had" in your second cat sentence.

SA

Nevermind. My English grammar sucks today, evidently.

Like, "Ten years ago I was sure that the Olympics happened" vs "Ten years ago I was sure the Olympics happened"?

Not exactly interchangeable, but close. It kind of depends on the context. The first could be taken more to imply a belief in the Olympics, where the second could be taken to imply a certainty in the timing of the Olympics.

For most purposes, this is a very miniscule distinction.

That's actually not the past perfect. Past perfect is "had happened" vs. "happened".

Quite frankly, unless this is for school? After reading the examples? Most native English speakers will not only not have a clue if you get it 'wrong', but about half of them do it 'wrong' to begin with.

I generally only have issues with my ellipse abuse and tense shifts when i write, (my beta is a grammar nazi and awesome) so i know my command of English is quite good and i have *no friggin' idea* what the 'past perfect' is.

Past perfect tense is "had (verb)". An example would be "had spoken to" vs. "spoke to".

There's a pretty big difference since past perfect is often used to denote a more distant past event.

/was an ESL teacher for a while

The examples given, though, seem pretty interchangeable and not something that would make me go 'wait, that sounds weird'.

If you want to see specifics, take a look at my first post. I'm not saying it always does, but it can definitely change the meaning of a sentence.

The more you knooooowwww~

Yeah, i read through all the things. Eh. I hated all this stuff in school - no clue what a past perfect is or a dangling participle. Didn't seem to make a difference to my writing, though - it's generally correct. Lucky me.

That's the problem with English lol... so many grammar rules that are irregular, subject to change, and largely intuitive. As native speakers we are lucky in that we can usually intuit them correctly and don't need to know the names of parts of speech in order to use them.

For a non-native speaker trying to acquire fluency (and this is especially true of fluent writing) it's hugely daunting and does require a knowledge of terms and general rules for grammar usage. Almost all of the studying I did for my old job was trying to memorize what the proper terms for all that intuitive grammar actually were.

Sitting in English class while the teacher went over (and over and over) the parts of speech was so frustrating for me. I never *got* it. Asked to point out a noun or a verb, i was fine. An adverb, i'd have to think. Anything else? Forget it, i was lost. I dunno why.

I guess English is confusing, but people talking about Russian grammar seems incredibly confusing to me, so i suppose it's all a matter of what you're used to.

I think the answer is yes, if I understand correctly.

Let's compare two sentences, branching off of your "tens years ago, I was sure that..." (which already sounds a little weird, because you're relating the experience of being sure of something ten years ago, but let's fly with it.)

A. Ten years ago, I was sure that the new product was released before the war started.

B. Ten years ago, I was sure that the new product had been released before the war started.

In this case, B is the correct sentence. In relation to the war (a past event), the past perfect describes something that happened already (the product had been released).

Easier sentences:

A. I was sure that she had died before you were born.
B. I was sure that she died before you were born.

In this case, A is technically correct (I believe?) but I think many native speakers would say B, too.

-She had gone to the store before picking up the kids.
-He had eaten breakfast before he left for work.

to me, also sound correct if you say

-She went to the store before picking up the kids.
-He ate breakfast before he left for work.

So... I'm not sure if it's optional in some cases, or we're so adjusted to using incorrect grammar... I don't know. haha

[ SECRET POST #2585 ]

Past perfect (ESL here)

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