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Sanfranciscans mocking

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Sanfranciscans mocking

by sjd00d » Sat Jan 31, 2009 2:31 pm
ain't i right in picking 2 as opposed to the OA that has 1? OA explanation is just that simple past wouldn't do which doesn't make sense to me. If anything, past perfect will not work as san franciscans mocked first and then the municipals made the boast a reality.
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by Karen » Sat Jan 31, 2009 5:56 pm
The OA is right, but the explanation that that site gives just isn't very clear. What they mean about 2 past events is not the mocking and the making good on the boast. What they're trying to say is that the past perfect is used whenever you're talking about an event in the past that preceded another, relevant moment in the past. So in this case, the moment in the past that's relevant is implied by the phrase "within 20 years" -- it sets a time limit (i.e. it means something like "before 20 years had passed") and says that the city had made good on the boast *before that time limit*.

It's similar to saying "By the age of 8, Mozart had written pieces of music that blew everyone away." It's not that there are 2 past *events*, exactly; rather it's that there's a deadline -- the moment at which Mozart turned 8 -- and saying that he *had written* these things before that moment.
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by sjd00d » Sat Jan 31, 2009 9:19 pm
Karen wrote:The OA is right, but the explanation that that site gives just isn't very clear. What they mean about 2 past events is not the mocking and the making good on the boast. What they're trying to say is that the past perfect is used whenever you're talking about an event in the past that preceded another, relevant moment in the past. So in this case, the moment in the past that's relevant is implied by the phrase "within 20 years" -- it sets a time limit (i.e. it means something like "before 20 years had passed") and says that the city had made good on the boast *before that time limit*.

It's similar to saying "By the age of 8, Mozart had written pieces of music that blew everyone away." It's not that there are 2 past *events*, exactly; rather it's that there's a deadline -- the moment at which Mozart turned 8 -- and saying that he *had written* these things before that moment.
Hmmm..so, i disagree. LA boasted about the world city in 1980, by 2000 (20 years) that made it a reality. What am i missing?
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by Alara533 » Sun Feb 01, 2009 12:42 am
Karen has given an excellent example.

Try it this way....

If we just take future tense, then we would say..

Powerful municipals will 'have' made the boast a reality....

Now when we take this to past tense, we use the past tense of Have, ie had!! -
Powerful municipals will had made the boast a reality....

I personally think, 'would' is better than 'will'. May be they are asserting it here (with will) rather than stating a probability (with would).
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by sjd00d » Sun Feb 01, 2009 12:58 am
Alara533 wrote:Karen has given an excellent example.

Try it this way....

If we just take future tense, then we would say..

Powerful municipals will 'have' made the boast a reality....

Now when we take this to past tense, we use the past tense of Have, ie had!! -
Powerful municipals will had made the boast a reality....

I personally think, 'would' is better than 'will'. May be they are asserting it here (with will) rather than stating a probability (with would).
sorry dude but i don't know why you decided to add "have" (present perfect) to mean it was past..past is a past..made conveys that.
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by Alara533 » Sun Feb 01, 2009 10:04 am
Now you have completely changed my thinking process.... :-)

I am confused as well. But the following explanation (seen in another forum) makes sense.

Check this out -

"1. Is "will had" correct usage ? 'Will' is used as a noun here. 'A powerful will' means a powerful desire, a powerful decision or intention. I think you are mistakenly looking at 'will' as a verb form here, but it isn't. If you now look at the sentence again, I think you will understand it better.

First of all why do we need "had" here ?? Simple "made" in place of "will had made" makes the sentence correct, isn't it ?? 'Had made' is just past perfect. Yes, you could use 'made' instead here. It's a matter of style and emphasis.

2. will ". . . have made" work in place of "'... had made" ?? No, there's no relevance to the present here.

Best wishes, Clive"


Now try the example Karen gave - all makes sense.

'It's similar to saying "By the age of 8, Mozart had written pieces of music that blew everyone away." It's not that there are 2 past *events*, exactly; rather it's that there's a deadline -- the moment at which Mozart turned 8 -- and saying that he *had written* these things before that moment.'

Hope this helps. Anyway thanks dude...for making me dig into this!
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by Karen » Mon Feb 02, 2009 6:56 pm
sjdOOd wrote:
Hmmm..so, i disagree. LA boasted about the world city in 1980, by 2000 (20 years) that made it a reality. What am i missing?
The part about LA boasting in 1980 doesn't matter. There are two points in time that matter:

1. the year 2000
2. the time when LA made the boast a reality

#2 came before #1. When it says "by 2000," it doesn't mean *in* 2000. It means no later than 2000. So LA could've made it a reality in 1998, and the sentence would still be true.

The fact that the act of making it a reality came before 2000 is what prompts the use of the past perfect. There are two points in time involved, even if there aren't two distinct *events* (in other words, the sentence doesn't say anything *happened* in 2000 -- that's just the deadline by which the boast had been made into a reality).
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