Brad, I've been quietly following these discussions about the past perfect, and I've been wondering--why are you so passionate about this issue? You seem to have a personal, emotional stake; am I right about that? For example, did you have a teacher who drilled you mercilessly on what you now believe to be fallacious rules about tense and aspect? Of course, I have no particular right to ask you this, and you have no obligation to respond; however, if you do choose to respond, it might help many list members understand where you're coming from, and it might even illustrate the problems, which others have alluded to, with focusing on "correctness" in the teaching of grammar.

Brian 



-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Brad Johnston
Sent: Mon 2/18/2008 7:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: E.B. White & the past perfect
 
Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
   
  Brad,

  I am absolutely baffled why you believe "It was like the revival of an old melodrama that I had seen long ago with childish awe" is not correct.
   
  Tell me how you feel about, "It was like the revival of an old melodrama that I saw long ago with childish awe", "saw" being the past tense of "to see". He saw it long ago.
   
  The other point I would like to make is that people don't put "had" in front of past tense verbs.
   
  They put 'had' in front of words that are, in context, past tense verbs, as in this item from today's newspaper, describing an accident scene: "He said his son (had) told him that he was going to the race with his cousin".
   
  "Had" is followed by a past participle, which is identical with the past tense form for all regular verbs. That's true, as with "told" above, which is why I say they put 'had' in front of past tense verbs. In the quote, "told" is a past tense verb.
   
  "He walked through fields he (had) walked as a child" is perfectly well formed ... without the 'had'.
   
  If you are correcting verb phrases like that, then you are deeply mistaken.
  
I think writing teachers, like doctors, should "first do no harm." Agreed.


       
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