Brad,

While I should let the writer of that sentence speak for himself, what you're objecting to is the point on which we, many of us on this list, disagree with you.  No one would argue that was/were is not the past tense of "be."  But in this sentence past perfect is clearly called for.  The marking down clearly is prior to the instructor having the student in his/her office.  There is no other syntactic marking of this, and so the past perfect helpsl to order events as the writer intends.  I don't understand why you would call this use of the past perfect wrong.  It's what we agree the past perfect is about.

Herb

Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN  47306
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________________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brad Johnston [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: April 9, 2009 6:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Any member can give their opinion

A couple of days ago, I had a student in my office asking about exactly the same issue. His paper for another class (had been) was marked down about a letter grade for "person" --> "they" shifts, and as he had a different class in which it wouldn't have been an issue ...

The past tense of the verb "to be" is was (singular) and were (plural), not "had been".



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