"All artists quiver under the lash of adverse criticism", Catherine Drinker Bowen.
Scott.
Note that I wrote to you privately and YOU took it public. I have agreed to not pursue the past perfect on the list but I will reply the same way your message came to me, as I was taught is polite.
You wrote and I corrected, "I (had read) read most of the classics (in English) -- fiction and non-fiction -- before high school", and you object.
So you would prefer to say that World War One had been fought before World War Two, and that I had thought twice before I responded to your message?
He (had been) was thoroughly disillusioned by the bigotry and stupidity of the dean at a time on the past.
All past events were preceded by other past events. The past tense of 'to be' is 'was' (singular) and 'were' (plural), NOT 'had been'.
Her taking of classes was a completed action before her past tense claim.
So she had taken Cicero her junior year and Virgil her senior year, rather than "She took Cicero her junior year .."? One has to complete one's junior year before one can be a senior.
If you think that's how the past perfect works, I wonder how you define it. Go ahead and try it. I've invited many ATEGians to do so and not a single one can do it. That's how far behind we (the English-speaking world) are in teaching a useful tense, the past perfect (by whatever name).
One man tried it by saying, "The past perfect is 'had' plus the past participle", which is more than a tad shy of the mark, rather like saying a train is a thing with wheels (as are rickshaws and lawn mowers).
.cheers.brad.22may09.
--- On Fri, 5/22/09, Scott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Scott <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: Well-crafted English works
To: [log in to unmask], "'Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar'" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, May 22, 2009, 9:55 AM
My reading of classics was a completed action before my past tense attendance at high school.
Her taking of classes was a completed action before her past tense claim.
Our correction of papers a completed action before our past return of the papers to the professors( —or our geese would have been cooked).
My seeing was in the past; the inaction of the students was a completed past (in)action before my past seeing took place.
At the time in the past when the last meeting occurred, my colleague most certainly “was NOT enthusiastic” or he would not have been seeking
another position. He had been thoroughly dis ill usioned by the bigotry and stupidity of the dean at a time on the past. Not even the grossest of
nescience can justify the ignorance/ ill iteracy shown in the suggested change to the sentence. If you know that little about English, you are
wasting my time and everyone else’s on this list.
I have more to do than waste my time with a patently ill iterate commenter.
Do not bother replying; I shall not waste my valuable time reading such asininities.
I disagree very strongly with some of the posters but I respect their opinions. Your usage of tenses would rate an F in my eighth-grade English
class if I were teaching one again. In my seventh grade class, I would only fail you after I had taught sequence of tenses. I should remark that
none of my seventh-grade students failed a test requiring them to write using correct sequence of tenses. Then again, they were primarily the
children of homes where the parents read no newspapers or magazines.
N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
Professor Emeritus
history & languages
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 8:04 AM
To: Scott Catledge
Subject: Well-crafted English works
I (had read) read most of the classics (in English) -- fiction and non-fiction -- before high school.
Mississippians could graduate with pitifully few academic credits: a very intelligent friend claimed that she (had taken) took all 10 academic classes that were offered by her school.
It was legal for us to show our marked and corrected themes to each other to ensure that we (had corrected) corrected all the errors before we turned them back to the professor.
I saw students who (had never written) never wrote a theme turn in well-crafted papers by the end of third quarter.
Then again, I met a colleague at SAMLA who (had been) was enthusiastic about his
up-coming assignment to establish a Freshman English curriculum at his new school.
He (had been told) was told that his new English classes were efforts to impose a outdated middle-class White written language that insulted the multi-cultured body by both indicating that their modes of expression were not just as valuable as his and by his
insistence on making them write and grading their written work products.
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