Timeline for Should the past perfect be eschewed?
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 14, 2011 at 8:43 | comment | added | Tragicomic | @ogerard: Uh-huh.. Right. A change of tense is not appropriate unless there is a change in time frame. You can't go cutting out hads all over the place unless they're superfluous. | |
| Apr 13, 2011 at 8:25 | comment | added | ogerard | Beware: what you propose in your answer ("cutting extra had"), is correct but is not a change of tense, rather an ellipsis of a common auxiliary verb, and appropriate in such an enumeration of actions. | |
| Mar 17, 2011 at 16:10 | comment | added | Jason Orendorff | Right. B is confusing and should be avoided. Though, a whole page of past perfect might read so badly that it's better to use the past tense and mark the transition from "past" to "past past" some other way. For example, "I thought back to when I had first laid eyes on this dame. [two-line break] I was reading a cheap novel when she burst into my office. She was tall, proud, and had the kind of legs..." | |
| Mar 10, 2011 at 14:25 | vote | accept | The English Chicken | ||
| Mar 10, 2011 at 10:06 | history | edited | Tragicomic | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
added 1 characters in body; added 5 characters in body
|
| Mar 10, 2011 at 9:50 | history | answered | Tragicomic | CC BY-SA 2.5 |