Search results for 'tag:Dates tag:Past perfect' matching tags 'Dates' and 'Past perfect'

Re: did not eat / had not eaten

Clive — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:08:27 GMT

Hi,
did not eat is in the simple past which requires a specific date?
so this in this had not eaten (past perfect) referring to the past would be the correct one?
is my explanation correct?
Generally speaking, that's true.

But it's better to think of it this way. The Past Perfect shows that a past event has importance at some later time in the past.
eg When I saw the man last Tuesday, he was hungry because he had not eaten for two weeks. I gave him some food immediately.

If you search the Forum for 'Past Perfect', you will find a lot of discussions.

Best wishes, Clive

Re: did not eat / had not eaten

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:23:46 GMT

Hi. did not eat is in the simple past which requires a specific date?
so this in this had not eaten (past perfect) referring to the past would be the correct one?
is my explanation correct? thanks

Memos show Clinton turmoil

Jackson6612 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:05:10 GMT

Memos show Clinton turmoil

Question: I would have written ''Clinton's turmoil''. Why didn't the author use apostrophe?

BY CRAIG GORDON AND TOM BRUNE | <email addresses removed by mod.>
August 13, 2008

Question: Why is semicolon used instead of comma to separate the email addresses above?

WASHINGTON - In a fresh postmortem (=an examination of a plan or event that failed, done to discover why it failed, =autopsy) on Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid (=attempt to obtain or do something), newly published staff memos (=a short official note to another person in the same company or organization) and e-mails reveal a campaign hobbled (=to hobble something or someone means to make it more difficult for them to be successful or to achieve what they want) by internal rivalries (=a situation in which two or more people, teams, or companies are competing for something), faulty planning, bloated (=more than needed, =excessive) spending - and perhaps most important, Clinton's own failure to make the hard decisions.

Clinton offered herself to voters as a hyper-competent (=extra competent) executive ready to be president from day one. But atop (=on top of something) her own campaign, she was a hesitant leader, who allowed bitter infighting (=when members of the same group or organization argue, or compete with each other in an unfriendly way) to fester (=If an argument or bad feeling festers, it continues so that feelings of hate or dissatisfaction increase) among staffers over whether to go negative against Barack Obama, according to the Atlantic magazine.

The most bare-knuckled (=characterized by disorderly action and disregard for rules) lines of attack came from Clinton's chief strategist, Mark Penn, who urged Clinton to highlight Obama's "lack of American roots" due to his upbringing in Indonesia and Hawaii - saying he could only win if he faced Attila the Hun ((?406-453 AD) a king of the Huns (=an ancient people from Asia) who attacked and took control of large parts of the Roman Empire. He is famous for being violent and cruel).

But Clinton didn't embrace Penn's flag-waving (=the expression of strong national feelings, especially when these feelings seem too extreme) approach (=way of doing something), which campaign aides (=someone whose job is to help someone who has an important job, especially a politician) insist was never seriously considered.

Question: Clinton didn't embrace Penn's approach because she did not consider it seriously. Therefore, what campaign aides were saying is redundant.

The article also says that Clinton at times grew frustrated and short-tempered - including on the morning after her stunning third-place finish in Iowa in January, when aides on a call were silent. Clinton's camp dismissed the story as "inside-the-Beltway gossip" and "old news." And former campaign aides sharply disputed the notion of Clinton as an indecisive leader, with one campaign veteran saying, "Nobody seems to want to remember the fact that we had so many successes and come-from-behind victories in this campaign ... and they are due in large part to Senator Clinton's leadership."

Question: What does the line including on the morning...when aides on a call were silent mean? If she finished third place, then why would the author describe it as stunning? What does call mean in when aides on a call were silent?

Question: What does the phrase inside-the-Beltway gossip mean?

Question: What does the line Nobody seems to want to remember...to Senator Clinton's leadership'' mean?

But the e-mails and memos offer vivid (=very clear and detailed) new details about what had long been reported - that Clinton's headquarters was beset (=to make someone experience serious problems or dangers) by caustic (=bitter) internal battles involving Penn and former President Bill Clinton, who wanted to forcefully attack Obama, and others who wanted the New York senator to take a more positive tack (=method, =way of doing something). At one point, it was Bill Clinton - and not Hillary - who approved the famed 3 a.m. phone call ad.

Question: what had long been reported is passive past perfect tense. Am I right?

Question: I think headquarters should take plural verb. What do you say?

Question: Why are the hyphens used in -and not Hillary-? I believe commas would do instead?

Adding to the turmoil was the fact that the campaign had little strategy and no money left to seriously compete in the post-Super Tuesday contests - having (=the form having with a past participle can be used to introduce a clause in which you mention an action which had already happened before another action began) burned through $106 million before Iowa. That allowed Obama to win 12 straight contests and effectively wrap up (=to finish a job, meeting etc) the nomination.

Question: What does burned through mean?

In the end, the campaign's strategy came to reflect some of the internal turmoil, as Clinton veered (=changed course) from attacking Obama to emphasizing her personal side.

Question: What does her personal side mean?

Penn did offer some advice in March 2007 that proved on the mark - Clinton's path to victory lay with women and lower- and working-class voters.

Question: What does proved on the mark mean? I couldn't find it in the dictionary.

But by the time Clinton finally settled on that strategy to win the later primaries, it was too late.

Excerpts from the memos

"All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light ... It also exposes a very strong weakness for him - his roots to basic American values and culture are at best (=even when considered in the most positive way) limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values." Strategist Mark Penn, from a March 19, 2007, memo to Hillary Rodham Clinton advising her to attack Barack Obama for his "lack of American roots."

Question: What does centre mean in the above context?

"The right knows Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun, and a third party would come in then anyway." Penn, from the same memo.

Question: Does right refer to right wing in the above context?

"This has been a very instructive call, talking to myself." Clinton, before angrily hanging up on a staff conference call the day after coming in third in Iowa in January. "She complained of being outmaneuvered (=to gain an advantage over someone by using cleverer or more skilful plans or methods) in Iowa and being painted as the establishment candidate," according to the Atlantic - but was met with near-silence.

Question: I would have written This has been..., talking to me. Why did she use myself?

Question: What is a conference call? Is it some kind of telephone call which address many poeple?

Question: Why is in used in coming in third?

"STOP IT!! I have help my tongue for weeks. After this morning's WP story, no longer. This makes me sick. This circular firing squad that is occurring is unattractive, unprofessional, unconscionable, and unacceptable ... It must stop." Robert Barnett, a Clinton lawyer and Washington insider, from a March 6, 2008, e-mail to campaign staff after a Washington Post story detailed the infighting.

Question: What does I have help my tongue for weeks mean?

Question: What does This circular firing squad mean?

Question: Were the comments in the last paragraph made by Robert Barnett?

Re: backshift of zero or first conditional?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:34:10 GMT

Thank you. I may be naive to ask you this: What is the reason to shift-back further only the following two events and leave the other two events just once back (as it seems -- I don't how many times back since the past can go back far in the past with the ability to accommadate how many ever times back intact)?? He discovered that the promise was broken, schools were d[ e ]stroyed, people had gone to other lands, and the leaders had become corrupt. How about here??? Why use a past perfect in one and not in the other?? (I didn't see any context for further mentioning of development in the text) When he arrived, it had developed into ***, and they became his worst enemies.

Re: tense - why wrong?

CalifJim — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:41:04 GMT

Anonymous
How about this: "The World Court today threw out the conviction of a minor and ordered his immediate release. The High Court had on July 1, 2003, found the boy, then aged 12, guilty of murdering the 11-year-old girl at her house in Sentul, Kuala Lumpur, by stabbing her 20 times with a sharp object on May 30, 2002"

Perfectly grammatical. As I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, the past perfect is the tense for cases when the events are not being told in the order in which they occurred.

Actual order of events: The High Court found the boy guilty. (Later,) the World Court threw out the conviction.

Told in reverse order:

The World Court today threw out the conviction of a 12-year-old boy. The High Court had found the boy guilty on July 1, 2003.

That the exact date is mentioned in the same clause as the past perfect tense is irrelevant. It's "before today". That's all that counts.

The restriction to cases where an exact time is not mentioned applies to the present perfect, not to the past perfect. For example, the following is incorrect:

*The High Court has found the boy guilty on July 1, 2003.

Re: Reported Speech

miriam — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:36:47 GMT

Hello. Sorry to hear you're feeling uncomfortable with this type of activity. But you're not alone: I would be, too!

The sentences lack context, which makes it difficult to tell when tense changes are necessary and when they are not (among other things).

There is one sentence that is wrong without a doubt: # 7. The sentence in direct speech uses the present continuous, and the reporting verb (added) is in the past tense, so it really makes no sense to use a construction with "will" to report that statement. You should either keep the same tense (present continuous) or change to past continuous. Sentence #6 has a similar mistake. The decision, however, is sometimes difficult to make since I have no idea when the original statements were made, when they are/were reported, and, also important, whether what was said still applies at the time of reporting or it doesn't.

The rest of the sentences seem OK in general, except for a few details, such as dates and time references, and person changes. For example, in # 8 you retain "a year ago" instead of changing it to some other expression like "the year before" or "the previous year". Again, though, that would depend on several variables, the moment of reporting among them. Also, in #10 you changed "our customers" to "his customers" (why not "their" customers?).

And you're not consistent with verb changes. In # 1, you shifted from the present perfect to the past perfect. But then, in other sentences, such as # 2, you retained the tense from the sentence in direct speech.

I know this isn't much help, but it will -hopefully- point you in the direction of your mistakes and/or inconsistencies.

When we're taught indirect speech, we're told to remember the "golden rule": change verb tenses. But the truth is that it always depends on the context and the content itself, on the people speaking and the time of speaking.

Give these sentences another try, please, and let's see what happens?

Miriam

Re: PASSIVE

Goodman — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:25:39 GMT

Newguest wrote:

Hi

I'd like to ask you about the passive voice.

1. People believe that the president was very shy as a child.                                The president is believed to have been very shy as a child. I'M WONDERING WHEN I CAN USE HAD BEEN?

2. People believed that the president was very shy as a child.                            CAN I WRITE "The president had been believed to be very shy as a child" Can I use "had been" ???

How about this one: People thought he was a good candidate for the position.      Can I write: He had been thought to be ........

Thanks

Hi Newguest,

Your examples were not very good ones in terms of passive voice usage. Learners must realize that not all sentences are passive compatible. Here are a few examples which may help you understand better:

Active Present Perfect voice:

As a result of fuel price increase by the oil refineries in recent months, all airlines have tagged on a 10% fuel surcharge onto the price of each ticket to offset the costs.. Airlines are the subject.

Passive present perfect voice:

As a result of the of fuel price increase by the oil refineries in recent months, a 10% fuel surcharge has been added to each ticket by all airlines to offset the cost. â here the surcharge is the subject.

Past perfect passive:

My car had been serviced by Paul for a few years until he left the repair shop. Now I have to find a new mechanics. â My car is the subject.

Active Past perfect: Paul had been servicing my car for years. Now that he has left the repair shop, I have to find a new mechanic. Paul is the subject.

Re: Martha has lived in Europe and Asia when she was little

Goodman — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:59:43 GMT

Amy,

Thank you for taking the time for the detailed explanation. I understand and in principle agree with almost everything you said. However, there is still some kind of glitch in our thoughts interpreting that particular sentence. Either my head is so thick that the signals from you can not penetrate, or I learned my English with the wrong book. we are still far apart from agreeing. So I searched for the answers. Keep in mind this is the questioned sentence.

<<She [had lived] in Europe and Asia with her family [when she was a little girl] >>

I am not advocating the use of past perfect. Rather proposing if it would be a more logical choice at the beginning. Of course a simple past would do the job but that was not the question. This is what I found:

http://www.learnenglish.org.uk/grammar/archive/pastperfect01.html

The past perfect can serve the same purpose as conjunctions of time such as when, after and before:

My proposed sentence in debate:

When she (had) finished her work she left the office.
After Jimmy (had) arrived, the party became really good.
Before he retired my father (had) worked in the post office.

Notice that it is not normally necessary to use the past perfect in these situations, but it is quite common to do so, especially with the conjunction when, which has several different meanings and may need to be clarified.

By using a combination of these conjunctions and different tenses we can not only explain ourselves more precisely, but also be less repetitive.

As with most verb tenses, the past perfect has both a simple and a continuous form:

I had talked to all of the candidates by lunchtime.
I had been talking so much that I was starting to go hoarse.

While the simple form is used to stress the fact that the action was finished (i.e. there were no more candidates to talk to), the continuous form stresses the continuation of the activity (i.e. I would (probably) talk some more).

Another difference is that we tend to use the past perfect simple to speak about situations that lasted a long time, or were permanent, while the past perfect continuous is for more temporary or short-term situations or actions:

By that time the Moors had lived in southern Spain for over 700 years.
I had only been living in London for a week when I found a job.

There are also some verbs (called stative verbs) that are not usually used in the continuous form, even though that tense would seem to be more appropriate.

We also use the past perfect tense with verb

Despites all the words said and used in the exchanges of this discussion, I do appreacite all the responses sincerely!

Re: why is the past perfect?

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 07:20:46 GMT

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 Elizabeth II, before (left) and after the president stumbled on a line during his speech at the state arrival ceremony for the Queen, Monday, at the House. The president said that the Queen had dined with 10 U.S. presidents and had helped the United States "cerebrate its bicentennial in 17 ... ." Bush caught himself and corrected the date to 1976.

Why it has to be 'had help' when I think Queen is quite healthy? Preceding what event or time is it based on? Possibly Mr. Bush is thinking Queen's dining with former presidents occurred 'before today' and that is the reason for the use of the past perfect?   Yes, before the time that he spoke.

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?

A: Did you go shopping?

B: Yes, I had gone shopping before now.

Now, the implication is that "now" implies the present time of their conversation and B went shopping before the time of the conversation. Is this correct and in normal use?

Bush's direct words were probably 'The Queen has helped . . . ', and these are now being reported indirectly in the newspaper in the form of 'The president said that the Queen had helped . . . '.

Best wishes, Clive

Why the past perfect?

Believer — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 06:56:04 GMT

Hi,

1. On the Thursday, May 10, 2007 issue of the Korea Herald in its Editorials/Opinion page, I saw this paragraph in the article titled "Paths taken by European nations and Korea":

In the race between the two candidates, the people of France sided with Sarkozy. That's because the French, who until now had used violent protests to counter government-led labor reforms, felt a heightened sense of crisis regarding the future of their country, which has degenerated into the "sick man" of Europe.

2. I also want to ask some questions on the article titled "Raising a political bigot," which was on the Tuesday, August, 2007 issue of the Korea Herald in its Opinon page.

As a New York Times-CBS-MTV survey demonstrated in June, we lean left on many issues, such as gay rights and health-care coverage.

Can you tell me where did 'the' for 'the New York Times' go if the newspaper has 'the' as part of its name? I thought the name most newspapers have 'the'.

Another sentence from the mentioned or said article:

It's not necessary that we're centrist. We're just eclectic.

Why the word 'centrist' does not have an article?

It's not necessary