Re: Past perfect --- punctual

F. Balducci:
Can the past perfect tense express a punctual action, or just a habitual
one?

Interesting; I hadn't encountered this use of "punctual" before, although
I see it is in the AHD.

Does it make sense to write "On 25th February 2003, John found a
newspaper in his garden. It was 8.36 a.m. When he had picked it up, he
went back inside and realized it was a Swedish newspaper"[1]? or does
"when he had picked it up" clash with the one-time action of picking the
newspaper up on that particular day at that particular time?

Don Phillipson:
Plupertfect (past perfect) "had picked it up" is normal
in this context. There is no clash.

Agreed.

When describing a habitual or repeated action the auxiliary
verb "used to" is the most common means, e.g. When I
lived on Clarey Ave. I used to go to the post office every
morning at 8 a.m.

Agreed (although this is an informal usage). The simple past "I went"
is also common. For a habitual action to be described in the past
perfect (or past perfect progressive, if appropriate), it needs to
have ended before another event in the past. Like this:

"Until then I had read the Mercury every day, but when I moved
to Toronto, I started reading the Telegram instead."

"When I lived on Clarey I had been going (or had gone) to the post
office every day; after the move, my mail was delivered."


I said: "I'm going out with Mike". "Don't you think it's not appropriate
for you to go out with every man you meet? People will think you're a
***", Jane said. "Oh", I answered, "it's not my fault if I'm not ugly,
like you". And when I had said it, I realized I had hurt her.

Unidiomatic. English seldom uses the duplicated negations in the
second sentence, unless for some preplanned purpose. We would
usually say: "Do you think it's appropriate to go out with every man
you meet?"

That's one possibility, but "Don't you think it's inappropriate...?"
is another. It's only the use of "not" that's unidiomatic.

As for "And when I had said it, I realized I had hurt her", that's fine.
--
Mark Brader | Our censorship system has one inexplicable anomaly.
Toronto | One of the rating codes is M for "mature", but there
msb@xxxxxxx | isn't any corresponding "I" code... --Peter Moylan

My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

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