crashed his bike before he'd finished paying for it

[Verona_82]

Hello,

I came across a senetence that made me rack my brain.

He crashed his bike before he had finished paying for it.

The car crash happened first, so why is the past perfect used to talk about the second action? Do we need the past perfect at all? IMO, "before" and "finished" make the chronological order absolutely clear.

Thank you.

 

[TheParser]

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Hello, Verona:

You have asked a question that confuses many of us ordinary native speakers, too.

I found this explanation:

"Sometimes the past perfect is used ... with before or an equivalent word, to indicate an action which

should have preceded the action expressed in the main clause, but did not actually do so:

The manager came before I had read the report."

Source: Walter Kay Smart, English Review Grammar (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1953), p. 170.

 

[Verona_82]

Thank you, the Parser.
Will the sentence sound ok if I write:

He had crushed his bike before he finished paying for it.

:-?

 

[TheParser]

Thank you for your kind note. We non-teachers are warned NOT to answer unless we are reasonably confident of our answers.

So I shall wait along with you for a teacher to answer your excellent question.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

 

[Tdol]

Thank you, the Parser.
Will the sentence sound ok if I write:

He had crushed his bike before he finished paying for it.

:-?

It's possible, but it doesn't sound very natural to me.

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank you, the Parser.
Will the sentence sound ok if I write:

He had crushed his bike before he finished paying for it.

:-?

I assume you still mean "crashed", not "crushed".

 

[Verona_82]

I assume you still mean "crashed", not "crushed".

Oh... 'crashed', of course