In his first interview as a politican

[Bassim]

Are my sentences grammatically correct?

In his first interview as a politician, Peter felt awkward and embarrassed. He stammered, blushed and was easily provoked. But with time, he became adroit at answering questions, dodging them, and even telling lies while putting on the mask of innocence.

 

[GoesStation]

The second sentence demands a different choice of tenses in the first. Can you see what tense you should use in the first sentence?

 

[Bassim]

Should it be the past perfect?

In his first interview as a politician, Peter had felt awkward and embarrassed.

 

[GoesStation]

Should it be the past perfect?

In his first interview as a politician, Peter had felt awkward and embarrassed.

Yes, and I should have said "the first two sentences." The second may be a little tricky to put into the past perfect. Care to give it a try?

 

[Bassim]

Would this version be OK?

He had stammered, blushed and had been easily provoked.

 

[Matthew Wai]

Easily provoked, he had stammered and blushed.

 

[GoesStation]

Would this version be OK?

He had stammered, blushed and had been easily provoked.

That doesn't work very well. I had this in mind, but Matthew's version may be better: He had stammered, blushed and been easily provoked. The helping verb had applies to all three past participles through parallelism.

 

[tedmc]

That doesn't work very well. I had this in mind, but Matthew's version may be better: He had stammered, blushed and been easily provoked. The helping verb had applies to all three past participles through parallelism.

GoesStation
Why is there the need to use the past perfect tense? What's wrong with using the past tense? If you are talking about disguishing the events, it is clear that the third sentence happened later, without using the past perfect tense in the first two.

 

[GoesStation]

Are my sentences grammatically correct?

In his first interview as a politician, Peter felt awkward and embarrassed. He stammered, blushed and was easily provoked. But with time, he became adroit at answering questions, dodging them, and even telling lies while putting on the mask of innocence.

GoesStation
Why is there the need to use the past perfect tense? What's wrong with using the past tense? If you are talking about disguishing the events, it is clear that the third sentence happened later, without using the past perfect tense in the first two.

It's a sequence of events. The past perfect unambiguously establishes the first two sentences' events as happening before those described in the last one. This would be clear from the context but it's more natural to establish the sequence explicitly.

 

[GoesStation]

He had stammered, blushed, and been easily provoked.

My sentence really needs the comma I've added above.

 

[Matthew Wai]

Matthew's version may be better: He had stammered, blushed and been easily provoked.

That might lead readers to mistake GoesStation's version for Matthew's.

 

[GoesStation]

I had this in mind, but Matthew's version may be better: He had stammered, blushed and been easily provoked. The helping verb had applies to all three past participles through parallelism.

That might lead readers to mistake GoesStation's version for Matthew's.

You're right. I should have written it as follows.

"I had this in mind: He had stammered, blushed and been easily provoked. But Matthew's version may be better."

 

[Rover_KE]

Bassim, you are free to ignore Matthew's responses but not to publicly insult him.

If his post had been off-topic we would have said so.

 

[Bassim]

Rover_KE

My goal on this forum is to learn English, I do not know what his is. GoesStation told me in his post to write my sentences in the past perfect, so I do not understand why Matthews comes up with his own post and writes something which I did not meant at all. If he has any questions he can post them in his own thread. I am 53 years old, and I have learnt as a child to listen to what people tell me and behave correctly. If someone tells you "no", you should accept that and not intrude on a person.

 

[Rover_KE]

Read about the Ignore List:

If there are particular members that bother you and you do not want to see their posts (or receive Private Messages and Emails from them), then you can add these members to your 'Ignore List'. There are several ways to do this:

Through your User Control Panel: User CP, Settings & Options, Edit Ignore List. Then, type their name into the empty text box and click 'Okay'.

 

[tedmc]

It's a sequence of events. The past perfect unambiguously establishes the first two sentences' events as happening before those described in the last one. This would be clear from the context but it's more natural to establish the sequence explicitly.

I have learnt that, where the sequence of events is clear in a context, there is no need to use the past perfect tense. So you are saying that it is just more natural to do so. Or have I missed something?

 

[tedmc]

In my opinion, this is an open forum and is a public domain. The person who starts a thread does't own the thread, and has no right to restrict others from participating, let alone telling them to "buzz off" or insult them.

 

[GoesStation]

In his first interview as a politician, Peter felt awkward and embarrassed. He stammered, blushed and was easily provoked. But with time, he became adroit at answering questions, dodging them, and even telling lies while putting on the mask of innocence.

The second sentence demands a different choice of tenses in the first. Can you see what tense you should use in the first sentence?

I have learnt that, where the sequence of events is clear in a context, there is no need to use the past perfect tense. So you are saying that it is just more natural to do so. Or have I missed something?

No, you're right. As long as the text makes the sequence clear, it can begin and end in the past simple. The original text lacked the degree of clarity I felt it needed for that.

 

[Matthew Wai]

[...] and even telling lies while putting on the mask of innocence.

I would use "wearing" instead of "putting on".