"had had"

[LeTyan]

Hi,

I once said a sentence like this.

"I studied all the past exams and quizzes to prep for the final, but when I was sitting in the classroom taking the final, I realized that the final is way more difficult than any past exam I ever had (here I know that grammatically, I was supposed to use past perfect, which is "had had"."

But how about in spoken English? Is it mandatory? "had had" sounds weird to me anyway...

Thank you!

 

[cereal_chick]

Although not strictly correct, I don't see a big problem with "I ever had" vs "I had ever had". I reckon I would use either. In speech, if I were using the pluperfect (the name for that tense), I'd use a contraction: "...I'd ever had."

PS: To nitpick, remember to close your brackets (granted it may be a typo), and even enclosed in speech marks, "had had" still needs to be capitalised, being at the start of a sentence. Other than that, well done!

[Not a teacher]

 

[riquecohen]

Hi,

I once said a sentence like this.

"I studied all the past exams and quizzes to prep for the final, but when I was sitting in the classroom taking the final, I realized that the final is way more difficult than any past exam I ever had (here I know that grammatically, I was supposed to use past perfect, which is "had had"."

But how about in spoken English? Is it mandatory? "had had" sounds weird to me anyway... Mandatory? I won't say, but it's surely more elegant.

Thank you!

Although not strictly correct, I don't see a big problem with "I ever had" vs "I had ever had". I reckon I would use either. In speech, if I were using the pluperfect (the name for that tense), I'd use a contraction: "...I'd ever had."

PS: To nitpick, remember to close your brackets (granted it may be a typo), and even enclosed in speech marks, "had had" still needs to be capitalised, being at the start of a sentence. Other than that, well done!

[Not a teacher]

Past perfect and pluperfect are one and the same. On this side of the Atlantic you will most often hear 'past perfect.'

 

[Rover_KE]

On this side of the Atlantic you will most often hear 'past perfect.'

I'd say that on this side of the Atlantic you never hear 'pluperfect' — only 'past perfect'.

 

[emsr2d2]

My father and grandfather (BrE) both used the term pluperfect, possibly because they both learnt Latin and Greek (and multiple other languages) which use the term.

 

[Rover_KE]

I knew I shouldn't have said 'never'.:roll:

 

[Tdol]

I heard pluperfect when studying French at school many years ago, but when talking about English, I always hear past perfect used.

 

[Roman55]

I am not a teacher.

When I was at school the term used was pluperfect for all the languages I studied.

Since I am not a teacher and my mother tongue is English I honestly never gave any thought to what this tense is now called in English.

Does this mean that in today's English school system, children learning foreign languages are taught the term past perfect only?

 

[emsr2d2]

From what I know of how children are taught foreign languages (not all of them are), I would be surprised if they were being given the names of tenses at all. My mum has been trying to help a friend's daughter with French and is at the end of her tether. There seems to be no logic to what the child is being taught. She has been learning for two years and she can't even conjugate a verb.