Timeline for Usage of "must have" in past tenses
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 8, 2012 at 8:52 | comment | added | Barrie England | I don’t care where ‘somehow’ goes. I preserved the OP’s word order to illustrate the use of ‘had to’. | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 22:29 | comment | added | John Lawler | Feel free to disagree with me. She had somehow to VP is a very highly marked literary construction in my English, maybe like using the past anterior in French. I would never say it, and therefore I would never write it. You may of course write whatever you please, but I try not to write anything I can't pronounce. On the other hand, I can pronounce a lot of stuff. | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 22:25 | comment | added | David | Thank you very much for your replies! I guess it is a doubt that comes from my own language and the intricated use of past, perfect, past perfect, anterior and beyond. | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 22:19 | vote | accept | David | ||
| Feb 7, 2012 at 22:11 | comment | added | Jack Robbin | @Barrie England - Agree. "Had to have been thinking" is a viable alternative to "must have been thinking". Same goes for "she had to have"...Although that one really hurts. | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 22:09 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @John: OMG! - this is twice in one day I'm forced to disagree with you! 14500 instances in Google Books rather suggests you can use had somehow to. I don't know of any "rule of grammar" says you can't - and nor do those writers, obviously. | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 22:03 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Technically speaking you're right, but I think OP is straining at a gnat here. Okay, there's nothing seriously awkward about your first "grammatically correct" alternative "had to have been", but if OP buys into "had somehow to have made" I think he's really swallowing a two-humped camel! Me, I'd just stick with "must have" and ignore the supposed "tense mismatch". | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 21:48 | comment | added | John Lawler | *She had somehow to have made herself appear shorter is ungrammatical; hasta and hadta hafta be together. They can't be separated. So somehow could go after have, or after herself, or after shorter; but not between had and to. | |
| Feb 7, 2012 at 21:31 | history | edited | MetaEd | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
spelling, style
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| Feb 7, 2012 at 21:19 | history | answered | Barrie England | CC BY-SA 3.0 |