I put 'had predicted' into Herb's Corpus suggestion, and look what came up. Here are the first ten of leventy-seven squillion entries, and ALL of them show that the past-tense verb 'predicted', is no more. Just as I thought, based on my effort to identify past-tense verbs in front of which people put 'had'. Nobody wants to let 'predicted' stand on its own and do its job without help. Everyone thinks 'predicted' needs help from 'had'.

 

Herb will want a larger sample but if you want more, look and see for yourself. The BYU Corpus won't let me copy-and-paste, so I had to do this the hard way. Ten is enough for me.

 

Look at the 6th one down that starts 'analysts had estimated'. I'll betcha if we put 'had estimated' in the search box we'd get the same result. I'll betcha there is no longer a past-tense verb 'estimated'. Any takers?

 

.brad.08feb11.

 

The Treasury Department figures showed it soared to $82.7 billion. Economists <had predicted> predicted a number closer to $30 billion.

 

He was now wearing, as Astolpho <had predicted> predicted, a sword, the short, broad-bladed cutlass favored by naval warriors.

 

Her teachers regarded her curiosity as impudence and, as her parents <had predicted> predicted, disrespect.

 

.. and then, as the old man <had predicted> predicted, none of it mattered, for the fog had completely filled the room.

 

The weatherman <had predicted> predicted eighty degrees by mid-afternoon. She figured he had it pegged about right.

 

.. analysts had estimated, but short of the 14 million that companies like Nissan <had predicted> predicted, accounting for less than 1% of the national fleet.

 

Sales were off 2.7 percent in December, a much larger decrease than analysts <had predicted> predicted.

 

"Thriller" was the biggest selling album of all time, just as Michael <had predicted> predicted.

 

.. given the army can't even protect its own headquarters and that the police <had predicted> predicted just such an attack,

 

You arrived during the storm that nobody <had predicted> predicted.

 

~~~~~

 

BYU Corpus of Contemporary American English, 410 million words, 1990 - 2010.