"When used properly, the past perfect makes a difference. It's not to be used on whim, sowing 'had's indiscriminately across the verbal landscape."
   
  What a lovely sentence, Brad. You really can be quite charming. I may borrow your planting metaphor in the future.
   
  Carol :)
  

Brad Johnston <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
    Craig wrote: Brad may be a case in point. Perhaps he asks his students to avoid past perfect because it doesn't feel right to him.
   
  ~~~~~~~~~~
   
  Brad is an ardent, and long-time, student of the misuse of the past perfect, principally the putting of the word 'had' in front of past tense verbs.
   
  Brad understands and appreciates the use of the past perfect in meaningful applications.
   
    ( 1 ) When Sally got home from work, Tom set the table and opened the wine.
   
    ( 2 ) When Sally got home from work, Tom had set the table and opened the wine.
   
  In ( 1 ) above, Tom opened the wine after Sally got home.
   
  In ( 2 ) above, Tom opened the wine before Sally got home.
   
  When used properly, the past perfect makes a difference. It's not to be used on whim, sowing 'had's indiscriminately across the verbal landscape.
   
  .brad.18feb08. 

Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

   
  I agree: a great many writing teachers are forced
to
rely on taste because of a superficial knowledge about language.
We
enable that to the extent that we reduce language to questions
of
taste. I see the results all the time, and I do what I can to
undo the
damage.
   
  Brad may
  be a case in point; perhaps he asks
  his students
  to avoid
  past perfect because it doesn't feel right to him.
   
  If form
has no
inherent connection with meaning, then taste is fine, but if you
constrain form on the basis of taste, you are limiting what
someone can
say (and no doubt building a distrust of their own instincts.)

    
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