Banes of our existence

From Writer Unboxed: Join me on my bender, fellow grammar geeks—here are a few banes of a recovering copyeditor’s existence. Today we’re diving into conjugational tomfoolery of some of American English’s most provocative participles.

I rather like the light tone here, compared to the ranting tone posts like this can take.

The pluperfect is the one I always advise authors to use care with, especially in flashbacks, where it can get a little thick and ridiculous—witness this perfectly correct sentence: “The yogurt she had had had had three weeks to turn green in the sink.” Ah, English, you whimsical little minx.

Pro tip: If you’re writing flashback scenes within a past-tense story, which is often where the pluperfect tense comes creeping in, signal that time shift to readers with a well-placed “had” or two here and there, but then drop it or your writing will seem cluttered

Pluperfect = past perfect, as you probably know. I think it depends on how long the flashback is, but if the flashback scene stretches out over more than a page or two, then yes, I think that’s exactly the way to handle it. I mean, use “had” several times as you ease into the flashback, and probably (I would suggest) several times as you ease back out of it. But within the main part of the flashback, simple past is most likely going to work better, even though I very much doubt you will ever be even mildly tempted to write a sentence with four “hads” in it, especially in a row like that. Actually, that would be a good place to throw in a comma:

The yogurt she had had, had had three weeks to turn green.”

The justification there is the overriding rule for commas — the ur-rule, as it were — which is that, when in doubt, commas should be used in a way that enhances the readability of the sentence. Should you find yourself compelled, for some reason, to use four “hads” in a row, that’s the exact moment at which to remember this ur-rule.

On the other hand, in my opinion, the far more common problem with the past perfect is that a lot of authors won’t use it even when it is entirely appropriate, and that’s really annoying.

Nevertheless, the linked post has a lot of tips like this:

Al Roker may forecast the weather, after which he has also forecast it…at which point it has been forecast. Sweet lord in heaven.

And that kind of phrase kept making me chuckle, so by all means click through and read the whole thing.

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