By Negations, Past perfect

Students are often led to believe that the past perfect must indicate a situation that existed before another. (This is true in general.) But, following this logic, it seems that the past perfect could never occur in a before clause. (It 'should' only occur in the main clause in such...

Let's assume that a quote precedes this so that we have a complete sentence. "***," Susan said, weary before the evening had even begun. Instances of the past perfect in a before-clause abound, in spite of the fact that they contradict the so-called rule that the past perfect always...

Hi!I am supposed to use the past perfect after "wish", such as "I wish I had known the truth".But how do I deal with negation in this case? Example: "I wish (have to, not) work today"Is it ok to write "I wish I hadn't had to work today"?Thank you

Hello Hela Because I was living in the neighborhood, I bought a dog. I was living in the neighborhood Negation : If I was not living in the neighborhood But caution! The negation occurs ony in unreal world And a grammar rule (indicative past) ...

I tried to describe what was still confusing me in this sentence in a post above (namely, the one “Posted: 02-08-2005 12:39 AM”) but it was addressed to Just The Truth so perhaps you didn’t read it. It went like this: “There seems to be no problem with using two Simple Pasts in this sentence;...