In Past perfect^x, Conversations^x

Hi, Thank you, Clive. I forgot to ask you this question: Doing things this way, that is using the past perfect in a rather casual fashion (or way) as to make a time reference to before he/she speaks, is this done often? It's not at all unusual, although people with poor educatuion tend not to...

Clive wrote: Hi, 1. I saw two pictures of Mr. George Bush with Queen Elizabeth II in the first page of the May 9th issue of the Korea Herald and the pictures were titled "SLIP OF THE TONGUE" and the rest of the writing went like this: The two picture combo shows President Bush and Queen...

The implication is that these isolated cases are on an imaginary list of things that are relevant to the current conversation. You can think of the present perfect as a kind of "diary tense". If you say, "The use of the cane has resulted in physical injury", you mean that the occurrence of...

Hi TomThe the past perfect is frequently not used in reported speech and many grammar books also accept this. The past perfect continuous is probably used even more rarely. Here are my thoughts:First of all, Pucca is right about using 'watching' rather than 'seeing'.Second, we need to know what...

Hi Amy,thank you so much. I'm starting to understand that much depends on other things, "this" or "that" for example. Yankee wrote:'This' is also more likely to be used when you have the package right in front of you and this spacial nearness would also tend to lead people to use the present...

Hi, Tell me where to use have & had. That's a large question Have you looked in a good grammar book to read about the Perfect tenses? That's the best thing to do first. Have you ever studied the Perfect tenses before? Please tell me whether the following sentences are correct or not? 1)I...

1. If he (was, were) over 18, he would have been hired. You need were here, as it's a contrary-to-the-fact assertion (he wasn't over 18), esp in formal contexts. I mean were is better than was, but still not the best (see further). See: --------- EXCEPTION If I...

Well, you have a process which precedes a moment in the past. That generally calls for the past perfect. Simple past is tolerated in informal writing or conversations.

Thank you, Tam, for the effort you made to try to let me understand this structure. However ... Tam Sadek wrote: Perhaps this example using the Past Perfect/Past Simple will make it clearer. "We arrived late because our plane had been delayed" versus "We arrived late because our plane was...

Hi Tanit, The whole mystery behind these mixed conditionals is merely context from the real life situation. As you probably know the Past Perfect is a last resort for native speakers in conversation as it can usually be avoided by using the Past Simple linked to the fact that everyone involved...