[Grammar] Please check the sentence

[elenaekat]

Please check the sentence:

At first, our plane was cancelled and we couldn't (were not able to) leave in(?) the day we planned (were planning/had planned?), then we realised that we should have paid extra money to change airlines.

 

[Grumpy]

Please check the sentence:

At first, our plane was cancelled and we couldn't (were not able to [Both are correct. "Couldn't" or "weren't able to" are informal/spoken; "could not", or "were not able to" are more formal/written] leave in(?) [No: use "on"] the day we planned (were planning/had planned?). [All are correct] [Start a new sentence here] Then we realised that we should have paid extra money to change airlines.

I hope this helps.

 

[elenaekat]

Thanks Grumpy!
Just one more question. Which one do you prefer when you speak?

on the day we planned/were planning/had planned?

 

[Grumpy]

I would say "were planning" if your planning process was still in progress, and "had planned" if you had finished the planning process.

As a personal aside - shared by lots of other aged aviators - I always call an aeroplane an "aeroplane", or an "aircraft". A "plane" is a tool for shaving thin layers of wood...

 

[emsr2d2]

I used to use the word "aircraft" when I worked in an official capacity at an airport. In my everyday speech, it's always a "plane". I don't think I've ever used the word "aeroplane" except when teaching, and then I always say that the more common word is "plane". Context will almost always tell us whether it's an aeroplane or a tool for shaving wood which was the intended meaning.

 

[Grumpy]

I used to use the word "aircraft" when I worked in an official capacity at an airport. In my everyday speech, it's always a "plane". I don't think I've ever used the word "aeroplane" except when teaching, and then I always say that the more common word is "plane". Context will almost always tell us whether it's an aeroplane or a tool for shaving wood which was the intended meaning.

Dear emsr2d2

I know, I know.... I wasn't seriously suggesting that anyone would mistake a woodworking tool for an aircraft.

As I said, this sensitivity about the word is probably confined to aviators of a certain age; certainly amongst military aviators of a certain age.
Have you ever seen the old film "Reach For The Sky", about Douglas Bader? Early on in his training at Cranwell [in the late 1920's], he refers to an Avro 504 as a "plane". His instructor says something like, "NEVER, NEVER call it a plane, laddie. It's an AEROplane!!" That same ethos was drummed into me and my contemporaries when I did my flying training at Cranwell some forty years later, and I'm stuck with it, I'm afraid.