"Dick Veit, UNCW English Dept." wrote: > For example, if I were to say today, "In 1990, I met the > person who won the Nobel Prize twenty years ago," it means the person won > the > prize in 1979. If I were to say "In 1990, I met the person who won the > Nobel Prize twenty years previously," it means the person won the prize > in > 1970. To make the latter sentence clearer, would it not be better to shift tense in the relative clause? "...who had won the Nobel Prize twenty years previously." Without the tense shift, I have a hard time distinguishing the difference in meaning between the two sentences. Note, however, that the original sentence in Dawei's query does not include an adverbial of time (like "In 1990") to give a frame of reference by which to measure the time mentioned in the relative clause, as your examples do. In the original, without that additional time adverbial, "ago" seems like the most natural choice. ********************************************************************** R. Michael Medley VPH 211 Ph: (712) 737-7047 Assistant Professor Northwestern College Department of English Orange City, IA 51041 **********************************************************************