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had had / has had / had

Expert replies
by confuse mind » Thu May 26, 2011 7:08 pm
I am very confused in the correct usage of 'had had / has had / had'. Can somone please explain me the usage or pointers to some text for this.
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Source: — Sentence Correction |

by amar66 » Thu May 26, 2011 9:15 pm
In simple words:

has/have had-- first "has/have" is indicator of present prefect tense. While second "had" denotes possession.
for e.g."I HAVE HAD enough of you!". In this sentence you are still angry , I mean at the time of writing this sentence your were angry,So present perfect is used. (Present Perfect indicates either 'continued action or continued effect of a completed action. )

had had--here first "had" is indicator of past prefect tense & second "had" denotes possession.
for e.g. He said he had had a family before he got homeless.
Another one: "I had had a girlfriend before her", here, it means you had 2 girlfriends before your present girlfriend, 1st girlfriend broke up, and then here comes the 2nd, and finally your present girlfriend.
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by GMATToppers » Thu May 26, 2011 11:07 pm
confuse mind wrote:I am very confused in the correct usage of 'had had / has had / had'. Can somone please explain me the usage or pointers to some text for this.
The three usages belong to three different tenses.

To get to the basics

Every verb has present past and past participle forms.

For ex: Eat Ate Eaten are the present past and past participle forms for the verb "eat".
Similarly for the verb "have"

Has/Have Had Had are the present past and past participle forms respectively.

If you take a closer look the past and past participles forms for this verb are same and this sometimes creates confusion.

Getting to the tenses

The verb in present perfect tense is has/have + past participle of the verb

Ex:

I have eaten my breakfast.
Now the sentence " I have had my breakfast" is very similar to the above example.
So in the second sentence the verb "have" is the verb indicating present perfect and "had" is the past participle form of the verb.

The verb is simple past is past form of the verb.

Ex: I ate my breakfast at 9 AM this morning.
the sentence "I had my breakfast at 9 Am this morning" also gives the same meaning.
Here "had" is the past form of the verb.

The verb in Past Perfect is had + past participle

Ex: I had eaten my breakfast before I met my friend.

The sentence " I had had my breakfast before I met my friend" also gives the same meaning.

the first "had" is indicator of past perfect tense and the second "had" is the past participle form of the verb
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by confuse mind » Fri May 27, 2011 1:41 am
@above

thanks a tom
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