Inbound message: These are pervasive patterns in English that children learn very early in life, well before they start school, and they rarely make mistakes with them.
 
This is, as nearly as anyone knows, not what happens. Children have to be taught that there is a verb form that is useful because it allows us to show that by the time one past event occurred, another past event had already occurred. "When the Queen arrived, they ate. When the Queen arrived, they had eaten".
 
They ate either after she arrived or before she arrived, depending on the verb form. This is the only example in the New York Times Style Book. 'The Queen' example was also sent to me by an English professor in England who opined that "it's the only way it can be done".
 
.brad.17mar09. 
   


      

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